Planned Parenthood in Indiana Forced to Abandon Poor Women:
Indiana, an awful state that smells like exhaust fumes and ponds of pig shit in the summer, just got a whole lot more awful this week as Planned Parenthood clinics around the state stopped taking Medicaid patients yesterday because the clinics won't be reimbursed by Medicaid because a law that banned such reimbursements passed by large majorities in the senate and legislature and was signed by the craven Mitch Daniels, who believes that women should have choice over whether or not he runs for president but not over their reproductive systems.

So conservatives are showing their compassion to tens of thousands of poor women, who are damned to live in the fetid hellscape that is Indiana, by shutting down a place where they got pap smears, STD and cancer screening, birth control, pregnancy tests, and, yes, abortions. No doubt, in continuing with their obvious care for hopefully pregnant women, Republicans in the Indiana statehouse will make sure they all receive prenatal care, along with funds to pay for the births at well-regulated, safe, clean hospitals. No doubt, since obviously Republicans want to ensure that poor women have as many children as possible, they will make sure the children have awesome pediatric care, not to mention good schools to attend when they're older. No doubt at all. Because, otherwise, forcing women to have unwanted children would be the ultimate in cynical pandering to a backwards ass bunch of fucks who have no concept of a world outside the narrow purview of, say, Anderson or Fort fucking Wayne or godforsaken Terre Haute. Because, you know, pregnancy would become an unfunded mandate.

All but one Planned Parenthood is closed today in Indiana because of the new law. They await Judge Tanya Walton Pratt's decision on whether or not to suspend it. Two of the three STD experts retained by PPIN have been let go. State legislators said that the organization only has itself to blame because it refused to stop offering abortions. "If (Planned Parenthood) wants to receive taxpayer money," said Republican Senator Scott Schneider, "they can simply stop practicing abortion."

By the way, surgical abortion is offered at only three Indiana clinics, two in Indianapolis and one in Bloomington. Another offers medication for abortion. Otherwise, the other 24 Planned Parenthood offices do not do abortions. And no state funding went for abortion, but, sure, hell, it might have helped pay the rent on the office copier.

By the way, just to be extra dickish, the new law also bans Planned Parenthood from participating in a tax credit program that helps with fundraising.

Somewhere in DC, Indiana Rep. Mike Pence of a swill trough of a district is flogging his bare back, kneeling before pictures of women who died because of unsafe, illegal abortions, women bleeding out from doing it themselves, women who poisoned themselves. Yes, he scourges himself clean, knowing that Jesus wants these fallen souls, craving them like a butterfly collector, like a trash man, and he, like a good, filthy gravedigger, will help provide them.