Friday, March 25, 2016

Blackburn's Committee Will Put Lives at Risk

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Marsha Blackburn, a cranky old congresswoman from Tennessee who opposes green initiatives and any form of gun control, favors giving the military more than it needs or wants, and strives to protect the rich from paying their fair share of taxes, is best known for her vigorous opposition to other women's rights to reproductive freedoms.  Blackburn, like fellow congressman, Trent Franks, of Arizona, sets all her flags to flying whenever the topic of abortion arises on the House floor.  She presents as opposed to abortion under all circumstances and loudly decries it as the taking of human life.

Blackburn, like so many of the anti-abortion crusaders, seems to quickly lose interest in maintaining human life once the infant is born.  Her constant opposition to Obamacare is indicative of her lack of interest in providing medical care that would prolong human life.   Marsha will protect you up until the rude spanking in the delivery room, but after that you are on your own.

Ms. Blackburn has recently been given the reins of a House subcommittee with the misleading name "Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives."   The title is misleading because what Ms. Blackburn and her GOP co-conspirators are out protecting is not infant lives at all, but rather they messing around in women's health care and attempting to force other females into carrying unwanted pregnancies.

Blackburn's subcommittee was formed in response to the Republican knee-jerk reaction to last year's (now discredited) secret videos that purportedly showed officials at Planned Parenthood negotiating the sale of "baby parts" (fetal tissue) to medical researchers.  And while the ultimate goal of Ms. Blackburn and others of her ilk is the complete shut-down of Planned Parenthood, the important women's health care provider has thus far survived.

The goal of the "Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives" appears to be intimidation of the people who actually perform the medical research which uses fetal tissue.  The committee, which had already issued thirty-some subpoenas for information, has now issued seventeen more - and the new subpoenas are requesting the names of individuals doing the research.  As one Democrat on the committee pointed out, the group has no safeguards in place to protect the names of those people once they are provided.  They will, in effect, be wearing targets.

And people wearing targets, particularly in our gun-crazy country, are in grave danger.  Just ask Dr. George Tiller, a man who was identified as an abortion provider by anti-abortion activists.  Ask Dr. Tiller about the target that the right-wing crazies placed on him.  Oh wait, you can't ask him.  He was gunned down in church by someone claiming to be "pro-life."

Ms. Blackburn if you want to truly be pro-life, then start by being a little more tolerant of the poor and the infirm in our society.  When poverty begins to disappear, when people have ready access to contraception and affordable health care, I predict that the demand for abortions will miraculously begin to lessen.  You are in a position to do more than just intimidate and incite, you could actually be making a difference.

All you need is a heart.

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