Defunding Planned Parenthood is Only Part of the Story
by Staff
February 25, 2011
WASHINGTON, (christiansunite.com) -- Defunding Planned Parenthood is only part of the story regarding taxpayer funding under Title X. The negative social effects on women, children, and families and the economic impact from Title X have not even been discussed during the current national propaganda campaign by Planned Parenthood and its allies over its defunding in the Continuing Resolution amendment offered by Congressman Mike Pence. "How timely is it that the most recent issue of The Family in America: A Journal of Public Policy would highlight the harm and exploitation of women and children under Title X programs," commented Larry Jacobs, vice-president of The Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society. Marking the 40th anniversary of the federal government's entree into "family planning" through Title X of the Public Health Services Act of 1970, the latest issue of The Family in America: A Journal of Public Policy explores "the U.S. War on Fertility" with hard-hitting essays that quantify the downside of President Richard Nixon's attempt to outdo his predecessor's efforts to usher in the Great Society.
Those essays include Robert W. Patterson's feature linking the ruinous social effects of federal family planning to the failures of the War on Poverty; Jennifer Roback Morse's examination of the incoherence of federal "sex" policy; and Allan C. Carlson's examination of how changing Protestant attitudes toward contraception paved the way for "population control" measures like Title X. Learn more at www.familyinamerica.org.
The issue also carries a fitting analysis, "From Anthony Comstock to Jocelyn Elders," a review by Charlotte Allen of Alexandria M. Lord's Condom Nation, as well as Bryce J. Christensen's look at polarization of American life in his joint review of Bill Bishop's The Big Sort and Naomi Cahn and June Carbone's Red Families v. Blue Families. Also reviewed, by Robert W. Patterson, is James T. Patterson's Freedom Is Not Enough. The issue also contains 20 "New Research" commentaries that glean insights from the latest empirical studies that confirm the positive social, health, and economic outcomes of life-long marriage and the child-rich family.
Robert W. Patterson's lead feature not only explores the dubious genesis of Title X but also demonstrates how the track record of dramatic increases in unwed childbearing since 1970 indict Nixon's scheme to reduce "untimely and unwanted childbearing" as just another tragic experiment in social engineering. The journal's editor also exposes the disingenuousness of the public-heath establishment in defending its vested interests, explaining why questionable estimates of the theoretical construct of "unintended pregnancy" provides no basis for the formulation of sound public policy.
Jennifer Roback Morse's essay explores the incoherence of federal efforts to reduce American fertility (through both Title X and Medicaid) and the Supreme Court's 1972 Eisenstadt "right to privacy" decision that allegedly demanded that the government remain neutral in matters of sexual behavior, marriage, and childbearing. The noted economist also explains how, when coupled with the 1973 Court decision creating an unrestricted right to abortion, that incoherence dramatically weakened normative expectations of marriage, leaving young unmarried woman vulnerable to the sexual exploits of men.
Allan C. Carlson places the entire federal experiment with family planning into historical and cultural perspective, documenting how American Protestants -- and particularly evangelical Protestants -- reversed their historic opposition to birth control in the 1960s, a cultural shift that dramatically lessened public opposition to the U.S. War on Fertility.
