Is Planned Parenthood Worth Borrowing Money From China to Pay For It?

Planned Parenthood “Send a condom to a Republican delegate!” Campaign

During the first Presidential Debate Governor Mitt Romney was asked: What things would you cut from spending? Romney replied, “Well, first of all, I will eliminate all programs by this test — if they don’t pass it: Is the program so critical it’s worth borrowing money from China to pay for it?”

Is federal funding for Planned Parenthood worth “borrowing money from China to pay for it?” Keith Fitzgerald thinks so.

Democrat Congressional Candidate Keith Fitzgerald appears in a series of videos taken at an event featuring abortion activist Sandra Fluke. Fitzgerald is fixated on issues that are not of great interest to most Floridians. Polls show that the national debt, jobs and the economy are top of mind with Americans. Fitzgerald at the event made some interesting comments about helping the middle class.

Fitzgerald stated that eliminating federal funding for Planned Parenthood takes away a woman’s ability to “achieve and stay in the middle class”.

“If a young woman has access to reproductive rights and information about how to exercise those rights she can make choices about when to have a child. She can make the choice to start her family when she has a partner in place, if that is her choice, when she has finished her education, when she has a life plan and a direction – a career and every study will show you that if a woman makes a choice on those grounds her economic prospects are great,” says Fitzgerald

Recent studies have shown that achieving and staying in the middle class is best determined by marital status, not reproductive choice.

The Heritage Foundation found that, “Despite the massive impact of marriage in reducing poverty, government does little or nothing to discourage births outside marriage – and nothing to encourage healthy marriages. Many common misconceptions persist. This isn’t about teen pregnancy: Most non-marital births occur to women in their early 20s. Girls younger than 18 account for only about eight of every 100 births outside marriage. Also, lack of access to birth control isn’t a significant factor.” [My emphasis]

“Planned Parenthood is a private organization that receives a little bit of — in the grand scheme of things – public funding,” says Fitzgerald.

“So, you are leveraging public dollars to let a private organization provide that (reproductive) information and those services. You take that away and what do you do? You take away the ability of a young person to make the choices that will allow them to get into the middle class or stay there. So we are taking people in the middle class and throwing them out, but not just them, but their children too. So Planned Parenthood is an issue about middle class as much as it is about women’s rights,” Fitzgerald stated.

However, the Heritage Foundation recommends that, “Government ought to connect low-income couples with community resources to help them learn, or relearn, skills needed to build and sustain healthy marriages – before they bring children into the world. It’s also imperative to reform the welfare system to encourage rather than penalize marriage.”

Fitzgerald said women’s issues, which he defined as Planned Parenthood and reproductive choices, are the primary reason he is running for Congress.

VIDEOS OF FITZGERALD EVENT: