Pro-choice distortion

[rogue06]

Planned Parenthood found a Trump-Like way to move money around to protect their interests. Money is fungible. The supporters/directors/managers/operators of Planned Parenthood have the Democratic Party in their pocket.

But do keep spinning!

Fungible.

The word of the day.

If the money I give you allows you to spend what you already had on dope it really doesn't matter if you literally use the money I gave you to by the drugs or not. My giving you money is what made it possible for you to buy the drugs.

[carpedm9587]

Fungible.

The word of the day.

If the money I give you allows you to spend what you already had on dope it really doesn't matter if you literally use the money I gave you to by the drugs or not. My giving you money is what made it possible for you to buy the drugs.

Unless, of course you asserting that the money you gave me is being used by Fred Smith to buy drugs. If you're going to make that accusation, you need to be ready to show that I actually gave the money to Fred Smith. So far, I see a lot of assertions with no data.

Assertion 1: I am also Fred Smith (shown to be untrue)
Assertion 2: I am giving the money to Fred Smith (not shown to be true, and data suggest it is not)

This is what both sides do all too often - make wild unsubstantiated assertions, or twist data to make it say what they want it to say. If the discussion cannot be had with a degree of intellectual honesty, it's not really worth having.

[Cow Poke]

I cannot find the link again, but the PP PAC donations are publicly available and on Open Secrets - as is the disbursement of those funds. No spinning is required - unless you are trying to spin a conspiracy theory that PP is funneling funds to individual donors to donate to the PAC. If that is what you are proposing, then I'd like to see the supporting data. Otherwise - all that would be is a conspiracy theory.

It's all the same thing, Carpe -- Planned Parenthood uses the PAC to distribute money to candidates to vote for Planned Parenthood to be funded by tax money. Rinse, repeat.... It's a shell game. If the donors to the PACs believed so strongly in supporting Planned Parenthood - they have enough money to do it themselves!

But I do agree with your last statement - PP is popular among Democrats, and a Democrat speaking against them would probably not survive very long. PP basically enjoys the same relationship to the Democratic party that the NRA enjoys to the Republican party, AFAICT.

With the notable exception that Planned Parenthood and its entities donate money directly to candidates - NRA funds issues, advertisements -- but does give money directly to candidates. So, no, NOT the "same relationship", as I so deftly demonstrated in this post.

[rogue06]

It is like public sector unions. They contribute overwhelmingly to Democrats who can be counted on voting to give them more money, a portion of which will be donated back to the Democrats who will again vote to give them more money etc, etc, etc.

[tabibito]

OK - so we now have confirmed that 3.4% reflects the number of abortions, not revenue, as I expected. They claim 9.7M services, so 3.4% of 9.7M is around 330K abortions. They report 332,757 in this document.

But your dollar numbers are way off. First, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 66 percent of legal abortions occur within the first eight weeks of gestation, and 92 percent are performed within the first 13 weeks. Only 1.2 percent occur at or after 21 weeks (CDC, 2013)

That means abut 306K abortions are first trimester, putting them in the $350-950 range Planned Parenthood cites as their cost. That puts the revenue for these between $107M and $290M with a mean of $198M. The other 27K presumably cost more, so let's inflate those to the $1500 you cite, adding $41M to the total. That means PP is seeing between $148 and $331M from abortions, with a mean of $239M. According to your own document, their total revenue was $1.665B, which means they are seeing between 8.9% and 19.9% from abortions, and the median is 14.4% of their total revenues.

If you attempt to narrow it to "just what they take in from actual procedures," then you end up with a highly inflated number because of the Hyde Amendment, which prevents them from using federal funds to subsidize abortions. Ergo, revenue from abortions will appear inflated because they cannot be subsidized by federal money, but all of their other services they offer can.

As I said - I find abortions morally repugnant and would love to see all of these numbers be "zero." But if we're going to make arguments, let's at least keep them intellectually honest. And none of this gets to the abortion issue in the least - it's just dollars and cents. It doesn't move us any closer to solving the issue.

Right - my figures are way off - where I said $300, you say $380. Where I said $99,827,100, you say 100,000,000+ (In both cases your figures are higher than mine.)

I never mentioned a figure of $1500 in any context.

total revenue was $1.665B? as opposed to total revenue from services, which make up less than half that amount: Subtract private contributions and bequests? 630 million (subtract that from the grand total leaves) 1,034,300,000. Subtract "other" revenue (investment income) of $104.8 million leaves 929,500,000 from two sources - government, and private health services. Which means that roughly 10% of total revenue for SERVICES comes DIRECTLY from performing abortions. (yes, I messed up the calculations first time around) or by treating the minimum on your figures as average ... 11% (and a bit). That figure will rise for later term abortions, but probably wouldn't get to 15%. Even figuring in more additions for medical services associated with abortions rather than for the procedure itself would be unlikely to reach as much as 20% of total revenue coming from abortion.

[carpedm9587]

It's all the same thing, Carpe -- Planned Parenthood uses the PAC to distribute money to candidates to vote for Planned Parenthood to be funded by tax money. Rinse, repeat.... It's a shell game. If the donors to the PACs believed so strongly in supporting Planned Parenthood - they have enough money to do it themselves!

Again - asserted and not shown. What is shown is that the donations to the various PACs that support PP (and other agencies) are coming from individual donors. What is shown is that these donations are a fraction of what PP receives from the federal government (less than 10%) and private donors (about 8%), making it about 4% of the combined amounts.

With the notable exception that Planned Parenthood and its entities donate money directly to candidates - NRA funds issues, advertisements -- but does give money directly to candidates. So, no, NOT the "same relationship", as I so deftly demonstrated in this post.

So they are different because PP donates money directly to candidates (about $6.9M) and lobbies (about $1.4M) and NRA donates money directly to candidates (just over $800K) and lobbies (about $5M)? Is it the amount that makes you think they are different?

Both agencies advertise. Both agencies have a strong level of support in their respective parties.

As for your "deft" demonstration, all it does is show that each side is ideologically committed to their cause. The NRA backs a weapon that unquestionably/unarguably is used to kill people. There is no question they are people. PP ends the development of what a large part of the country does not agree are "people." Again - start with their assumptions, and you end up at their conclusions without contradiction. Start with your assumptions and you end up at your conclusions without contradiction.

You've already made it clear in several posts that "continuing the war" and "being right" and "speaking truth" is more important to you than arriving at systemic solutions, so you really can't take the high ground - at least not with me. When you're ready to end the war in a quest to arrive at systemic solutions (and I'm talking about systemic - not case-by-case), then we can move forward. Until then - you are part of the problem - and the problem is kids are dying.

[rogue06]

Unless, of course you asserting that the money you gave me is being used by Fred Smith to buy drugs. If you're going to make that accusation, you need to be ready to show that I actually gave the money to Fred Smith. So far, I see a lot of assertions with no data.

Assertion 1: I am also Fred Smith (shown to be untrue)
Assertion 2: I am giving the money to Fred Smith (not shown to be true, and data suggest it is not)

This is what both sides do all too often - make wild unsubstantiated assertions, or twist data to make it say what they want it to say. If the discussion cannot be had with a degree of intellectual honesty, it's not really worth having.

So you need to change what I said in order for you to make your point and defend your position.

[carpedm9587]

Right - my figures are way off - where I said $300, you say $380. Where I said $99,827,100, you say 100,000,000+ (In both cases your figures are higher than mine.)

What was off were your percentages.

I never mentioned a figure of $1500 in any context.

Yeah. Odd that! I have no idea where that number came from. But then again I searched all over in the PP annual report for the $388-404 numbers, not realizing they came from your post instead. I'm not sure where I saw the $1500 for second trimester abortions, but it clearly was not you. My bad.

total revenue was $1.665B? as opposed to revenue from services, which make up less than half that amount: Subtract private contributions and bequests? 630 million (subtract that from the grand total leaves) 1,034,300,000. Subtract "other" revenue (investment income) of $104.8 million leaves 929,500,000 from two sources - government, and private health services. Which means that roughly 10% of total revenue for SERVICES comes DIRECTLY from performing abortions. (yes, I messed up the calculations first time around) or by treating the minimum on your figures as average ... 11% (and a bit). That figure will rise for later term abortions, but probably wouldn't get to 15%. Even figuring in more additions for medical services associated with abortions rather than for the procedure itself would be unlikely to reach as much as 20% of total revenue coming from abortion.

Again, I addressed this in my post. You are omitting the Hynes Amendment, which results in inflated percentages. Indeed, if my numbers are right, then the abortion revenue is in the non-government services" bucket, which is $365M. That gives the percentage a low of 40.5% and a high of 90.8% with a median of 65.6%. But all of those numbers are essentially meaningless because all of the OTHER services are heavily subsidized by government and private donations and we have no idea what percentage of all of the services are subsidized by what pool of money.

Even if 100% of their service-related revenue is derived from abortions, so what? What you are basically proving is PP charges for the abortions and gives all of the other services away for free because they are heavily subsidized by donations. What does that prove or what does that matter?

What matters, IMO, is that there are too many abortions, and we should be seeking for systemic remedies to make them end. So long as we are engaged in petty squabbles that constitute "the war" between the pro-life and pro-choice contingents, these systemic solutions are not being conceived, advocated for, or implemented. So long as they are not, children are dying. So long as children are dying and both sides prefer to continue the ridiculous war instead of seeking for systemic solutions, both sides (IMO) bear responsibility for the deaths that result.

[carpedm9587]

So you need to change what I said in order for you to make your point and defend your position.

No - you need to provide proof that what you said is true. You have not.

[Cow Poke]

You've already made it clear in several posts that "continuing the war" and "being right" and "speaking truth" is more important to you than arriving at systemic solutions, so you really can't take the high ground - at least not with me. When you're ready to end the war in a quest to arrive at systemic solutions (and I'm talking about systemic - not case-by-case), then we can move forward. Until then - you are part of the problem - and the problem is kids are dying.

Oh, back to the pompous ass routine!!! "I'm so virtuous and above it all and you guys are just here to win fights and kill children"

[tabibito]

What matters, IMO, is that there are too many abortions, and we should be seeking for systemic remedies to make them end. So long as we are engaged in petty squabbles that constitute "the war" between the pro-life and pro-choice contingents, these systemic solutions are not being conceived, advocated for, or implemented. So long as they are not, children are dying.

On this, there is agreement.

So long as children are dying and both sides prefer to continue the ridiculous war instead of seeking for systemic solutions, both sides (IMO) bear responsibility for the deaths that result

On this, so many factors come into play. The fact that a foetus is alive and its DNA human doesn't even register with pro-choice advocates. If that little can't be conveyed, there is scant hope of anything approaching a solution being conveyed (though I do live in hope).

[carpedm9587]

No - you need to provide proof that what you said is true. You have not.

Actually - this statement on my part is not correct. Going back, I realize I have conflated two things:

1) The discussion about the donations from the PAC(s) versus PP itself
2) The discussion about PP donations vs. NRA donations.

My statement is only true about 1). It is not true about 2). Rogue's (and CP's?) observation that these agencies (PP and Unions) receive federal funds, and then make political donations, is correct. They do. And that is also a distinction between PP and the NRA that I missed - and I think was part of CP's post.

The relationship between PP (and unions) and the Democrats is more like the relationship between all of these companies and the Republicans. All of these companies are receiving government subsidies, and a little digging on Open Secrets for any of them and you will find they both lobby and donate. Some lean Dem, Some lean Rep, some are balanced.

If this revolving door is going to be decried, shouldn't that be the case for all such revolving doors?

[carpedm9587]

Oh, back to the pompous ass routine!!! "I'm so virtuous and above it all and you guys are just here to win fights and kill children"

Wow - that really touches a nerve with you, doesn't it...?

It's not a pompous routine, CP. It's a simple statement of the reality. So long as people are devoted to "winning" a war that has not been won now for 50 years, systemic solutions are not being sought.

If you're not part of finding the solution - then you're part of the problem. It's fairly simple.

1) I'm working with various groups to help women make what I think is the right choice. That's a good thing.
2) You're working with various groups to help women make what I think is the right choice. That's a good thing.

3) I'm working in various ways to raise awareness that "the ongoing war" is not good, and we need to set it aside and find systemic solutions. That's a good thing.
4) You're busily continuing and condoning "the ongoing war." That's not a good thing.

Kudos to you for 2). Shame on you for 4).

[Cow Poke]

Actually - this statement on my part is not correct. Going back, I realize I have conflated two things:

1) The discussion about the donations from the PAC(s) versus PP itself
2) The discussion about PP donations vs. NRA donations.

My statement is only true about 1). It is not true about 2). Rogue's (and CP's?) observation that these agencies (PP and Unions) receive federal funds, and then make political donations, is correct. They do. And that is also a distinction between PP and the NRA that I missed - and I think was part of CP's post.

The relationship between PP (and unions) and the Democrats is more like the relationship between all of these companies and the Republicans. All of these companies are receiving government subsidies, and a little digging on Open Secrets for any of them and you will find they both lobby and donate. Some lean Dem, Some lean Rep, some are balanced.

If this revolving door is going to be decried, shouldn't that be the case for all such revolving doors?

I hereby, henceforth and hitherto, and in the past, do and have decried "funny money" in politics - regardless of from whence it comes.

[Cow Poke]

Wow - that really touches a nerve with you, doesn't it...?

Actually, I think it's your "go to" when you get frustrated. It's like you get the vapors, and have to vent.