The second word most feared by Republicans

When objecting to President Obama’s economic stimulus package recently, House Republican leader John Boehner was crafty to use a word guaranteed to cause Republicans to recoil in horror, “contraceptives.”

How you can spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives – how does that stimulate the economy?

What Boehner was really saying was: How could a dutiful Republican, snicker, support legislation that has the remotest connection with, dare I say the word…sex?

Well, for one thing, the section of the stimulus bill that Boehner is referring to is about health care, not sex. The measure, stricken from the bill the following week, would have made it easier for states to fund family planning services such as, Pap smears, breast exams and HIV testing, under Medicaid, therefore lowering states' health services costs.

In fact, the stimulus package still contains $87 billion in Medicaid assistance and a bi-partisan group of governors is petitioning Congress to quickly move the money out to their states:

This past week the bipartisan National Governors Association called on Congress to quickly pass the [economic stimulus] plan.

"States are facing fiscal conditions not seen since the Great Depression — anticipated budget shortfalls are expected in excess of $200 billion," the NGA statement said. "Governors ... support several key elements of the bill critical to states [including] increased federal support for Medicaid…"

Why didn’t Boehner pick on money that goes to treat diabetes or to provide vaccinations? Because contraceptives are an easy target. Republicans think contraceptives are all about permitting sex and not about reducing pregnancy. I think we all know that people are going to have sex whether contraceptives are available or not. Wouldn’t it be better to prevent an unwanted pregnancy to a low-income mother and to prevent having two people on Medicaid where before you only had one? Family planning saves money, period.

Too bad Republican thinking stops when they hear the word “condom.”

Here in Washington state, a plan is under way to save money by directing the state’s federal family planning funds to areas that have been proven to do the most good. Two bills (House Bill 1612/ Senate Bill 5629) have been introduced to the legislature that allow the state to focus its money into medically accurate sex education which includes information about both abstinence and contraception, and to discontinue their applications for federal Title V abstinence-only-until-marriage program funding because those programs have been proven not to work.

Not including contraceptives in your funding plans and your sex ed programs adds up to failure. So much for family planning Republican style!