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From Virginia Planned Parenthood:

Yesterday, SB18, the omnibus package that includes the ‘Trust Women, Respect Choice’ license plate was passed by the full House. However, like the House version of the bill, the language in SB18 was changed to redirect revenue generated by the sale of the plates away from Planned Parenthood to the Virginia Pregnant Women Support Fund. Despite the public outcry and media attention, anti-choice Delegates refuse to grant Planned Parentood equal viewpoint.

So there you have it.  The Virginia Delegate Assembly has not only dissed freedom of speech but it looks like they don’t think that women have enough sense to state where they want their money to go. Rewind to a few weeks ago.  In An Issue of Fairness we illuminated the hypocrisy going on in the Delegate Assembly with HB 1108 which was about Pro-Choice license plates which read Trust Women/Respect Choice (see illustration).

UPDATE: The bill now goes to the Senate. Hopefully the Senate will amend this bill by returning the funds to Planned Parenthood.  No victory laps yet, delegates.

The bill passed out of committee but in an unprecedented move, Del. Gilbert diverted the funds to some group called Virginia Pregnant Woman Support Fund.  No one knows much of anything about this group and it certainly does nothing towards health screens for women or prevention of pregnancy.  Regardless of what it does or does not do, Virginia women have the right to designate where their personal funds go. The license plate fees come out of the buyer’s pocket, not out of state funds.  Further more, none of the personal funds go towards abortion services.

Yesterday, March 1, the omnibus package (SB 18) with the license plate changes went through the full General Assembly with Gilbert’s amendment in tact.  I know that not everyone agrees on the subject of choice.  However, I did think we all agreed on freedom of speech and fairness.  If Pro-life groups are permitted plates with their choice of fund designee, then Pro-choice groups should have the same rights.  Apparently the State of Virginia is not only trying to take  away our right to choose.  They are also trying to take away our right of free speech as well as who to give our private money to.

Some facts about Planned Parenthood in Virginia and the license plates:

  • Planned Parenthood affiliates in Virginia serve over 30,000 underinsured and uninsured women, teens, and families every year. Without Planned Parenthood, these patients would often have to delay care or pay higher out-of-pocket expenses for routine reproductive health care.
  • 93% of Planned Parenthood’s services are preventive: annual gynecological care, cancer screenings, low-cost birth control, and follow up care. Revenue generated from the sale of the license plates would allow Planned Parenthood  to serve more patients in an economy where more and more people are losing health insurance.
  • No funds generated from the sale of the plates will be used to provide abortion-related services.

Too bad things have worked out this way.  I plan on making a donation to Planned Parenthood in the name of my state delegate.  I will do the same thing if I find out my state senator had anything to do with depriving me of free speech. I don’t need a license plate to speak out.

This license plate issue isn’t  about abortion.  It is about the right to free speech and to think like you want.  I have made my money legitimately and it is not for any of the anti-choice men who have gotten elected to make that determination for me.  Take your license plates and shove them, Virginia.

Follow the deception Rule of law is only when it is in your favor, apparently, especially if you are with the Family Foundation (subtitle-lets skirt around the court ruling)

Hopefully, Planned Parenthood will print up bumper stickers looking similar to the license plate and sell them for the $15 which would have gone to the state plates.  The state can just give up its other $10 it will lose.  Then people can donate in the name of their state senator and delegate.  I see a fun contest coming on…which delegate can earn the most money for Planned Parenthood.  I would put my money on Marshall if I were a betting woman.

35 Thoughts to “VA Delegate Assembly Disses Freedom of Speech”

  1. Captain Idiot-Face

    Sounds like Freedom of Speech is alive and well! I see nothing here to say otherwise. Say where can I buy a $15 bumper sticker? …….Just kidding!

  2. When will Tech decide that UVA can’t send their license plate money to UVA, but instead has to divert somewhere else.

    CIF, tell me why Virginians who want pro choice license plates are the only people with vanity plates who can’t decide where their money goes?

    Would you be angry if you were a pro choice woman? I don’t feel it is any of my business where the right to life plates want to designate their funds to go.

  3. marinm

    You don’t have to agree with the message or the message-maker to respect the right of a person or corporation to have a 1st amendment right to speech.

    If they authorized a political message on the plates for ‘Choose Life’ then this plate should be allowed to bring balance to the debate.

    I’m going to take a shower now.

  4. I agree. And those applying for the plate should be allowed to chose where the annual funds go. This one is political for sure.

    Actually, I would prefer controversial topics not be on plates on either side of the debate.

  5. marinm

    We find something we agree on. 8)

  6. Miracles never cease. definitely a red-letter day!!!!

  7. Captain Idiot-Face

    Moon-howler :
    Would you be angry if you were a pro choice woman? I don’t feel it is any of my business where the right to life plates want to designate their funds to go.

    If I woke up tomorrow, and I were a pro-choice woman (as opposed to the slowest mouse in all Mexico), you bet your bippy I’d be mad….mad as a wet hen, so to speak!

  8. Captain Idiot-Face

    It’s bad enough that I’m going to wake up tomorrow and be 40 years old.

  9. Just checking. Slowpoke, tell me it isn’t so? Not the dreaded four-oh!

    It beats all sorts of alternatives if that makes you feel better.

  10. Emma

    Happy birthday, CIF–some of us have had plenty of time to recover from that trauma 😉

    If people wish to designate money to charities, they should do so directly, rather than allow the taxpayer-funded DMV to act as clearinghouse for controversial charities. There are always bumper stickers.

  11. Wolverine

    40 years old?!!! Why, Cap’n, it’ll be a few years yet before you get an engraved invitation to join the “Geezers’ Club”! Enjoy your youth while you have it, Matey!! At 40 you’re a spring chicken!

  12. Emma, I would prefer this topic not even make it to a license plate. However, I believe in fairness. Fairness should not be political.

    And I agree with you essentially. However, that idea would do away with the concept of theme license plates.

    It was an end run to nail the pro-choice people. I am hoping the Senate does the right thing. Perhaps the GA might want to consider not allowing controversial topics for plates in the first place. If one groups gets to pick their designee, the other side should have the same option.

  13. punchak

    Cap’n,

    Forty! Think of all the wonderful things that lie ahead of you. You’re not even halfway to the end. Forties and fifties are about the best decenniers in one’s life. Sixty ain’t all bad either; or seventy or …

  14. PWC Taxpayer

    So, both bills were changed to “redirect revenue generated by the sale of the plates away from Planned Parenthood to the Virginia Pregnant Women Support Fund.” And its my understanding that they VPWSF is a “new” organization. Is that right? So is Planned Parenthood getting all of the money now? Seems to me that – if that is the case, the issue has been scewed in the favor of Planned Paranthood for some time.

  15. The VPWSF came in to being in 2007.

    No one is getting any money from PP plates right now. The bill hasn’t passed. It still has to go through the VA Senate. PP has not gotten one penny from license plates.

    There are a couple of Planned Parenthood issues out there. I believe it is intentional to misleader the voters. Bob Marshall is on the war path and is trying to prevent any Virginia funds from going to PP.

    Now I asked my delegate why Planned Parenthood was getting money in the first place. He didn’t give me an answer as to why. I thought I knew the answer anyway. It turns out I was right. The money amounts that Planned Parenthood had received from Virginia were medicaid reimbursements for medical services.

    Right now, if a woman on medicaid needs medical screening and birth control (as an example) she could go to a clinic or to PP or a private doctor. If she chose PP today, medicare would reimburse. If Marshall’s bill goes through, poor women will have to pay out of pocket if they go to PP. Medicaid will not reimburse.

    Meddling. As usual. VPWSF does not provide health screenings.

    There is only one bill out there having to do with plates. It just has to go through both houses of the GA.

  16. In the case of Delegate Marshall, the object is not to just do away with abortion. It is also to do away with contraception. Seriously.

  17. The Bob Marshall plan will create higher health care costs for Virginians. Prevention services are the best way to avoid abortion/adoption/unwanted pregnancy/unaffordable pregnancy. Cutting off options for birth control makes no sense.

    I don’t know why our other delegates buy in to his BS. They know he opposes birth control. Making PP the enemy just doesn’t make sense.
    I can support a candidate who morally opposes abortion but who does everything in his/her legislative power to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Anyone who supported Marshall’s bill of lies certainly will not get my vote however. It is time for people to stop buying Mr. Love Canal’s BS.

  18. @Moon-howler
    1. The object is to do away with Marshall.
    2. What does Virginia Pregnant Women Support Fund do?
    3. Did Slowpoke change his name?

  19. 1. He should not be a delegate

    2. I dont know. I haven’t taked to anyone who does know. It is an unfunded organization.

    3. I think he might have.

  20. marinm

    Ugh. That program (VPWS) smacks of government healthcare and should be terminated. Anytime the govt is involved with healthcare; we should be leary.

  21. Marin, what are you basing that on? re VPWS? I don’t know anyone who knows anything about it. How did you get the inside scoop? All I know is that it provides no medical services for patients which Planned Parenthood does. That was the whole point of the plates: To help prevent unwanted pregnancy and to provide health care screenings to poor women.

    This is very much government interference!

  22. marinm

    Uhm. #20 posted by Pinko shows what VPWS is..

    From that link:

    1. Purchasing or upgrading ultrasound equipment;

    2. Creating a separate program for domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking screening against pregnant women and new mothers;

    3. Conducting a public campaign to increase public awareness;

    4. Providing support services for students of institutions of higher education;

    5. Providing funds to allow early childhood education programs to work with pregnant or parenting teens to complete high school and provide job training education; or

    6. Providing for teenage or first-time mothers education on the health needs of their infants through free home visits by registered nurses.

    D. The Board of Health shall establish an application process and related procedures for community health centers, migrant health centers, homeless health centers, and public-housing centers seeking grants from the Fund. A grant may be made only if an application for the grant is submitted to the Board of Health and the application is in such a form, is made in such a manner, and contains such agreements, assurances, and information as the Board determines to be necessary to carry out its functions.

    So, my statement stands. VPWS provides healthcare as a government program and itself should be abolished.

  23. Where is the health care? I don’t see a single item on there that provides health care. I think it is a feel good organization that people can contribute to but really accomplishes nothing.

    Are you opposed to community boards of health also? They are a vital part of this nation and historically have been.

  24. marinm

    Can you define a community board of health? I just want to make sure we’re talking about the same thing.

  25. The health departments around the state. I guess they are state run.

  26. marinm

    No issue with the state department of health as it oversees licensing and provides govt regulation of the practice.

    In as much as the clinics provide free immunizations, free TB screenings, etc. I see that as a valid excercise of public safety. Side benefit is some people live that may have died. But, the main benefit is to keep communicable diseases in check as much as possible.

    In respect to them providing any service above that – those functions should be eliminated, staff terminated, and space reclaimed. The revenue regained by elimination of such should be returned to the taxpayers.

  27. Well I don’t think that that VPWS provides any medical services. It certainly doesn’t deal with preventing unwanted pregnancy.

  28. marinm

    6. Providing for teenage or first-time mothers education on the health needs of their infants through free home visits by registered nurses.

  29. That is not providing medical treatment. It is training.

    Education is the key word.

  30. marinm

    It’s an inappropriate expenditure of taxpayer funds. Government should not be invovled in healthcare. The program should be terminated.

  31. We disagree on what is health care and on govt. role in health care. As for the program being terminated, I don’t know that it is even an active program.

    My only feeling about the program is that it should not be getting funds that should be going to planned parenthood. I think it will be reversed today. The State Senate isn’t quite as paternalistic as the Delegate Assembly. They generally trust women to spend their money as they see fit.

  32. marinm

    “They generally trust women to spend their money as they see fit.”

    As opposed to the Federal government that is forcing me to buy insurance or tossing me in the pokey.

  33. PWC Taxpayer

    They have free health care in the democratic nation of Venesuala and if you don’t like that care – you do go to the pokey. In Canada, the premier would prefer to have the choice to travel south than risk their care. I wonder what he will do if Obamacare gets passed?

  34. Can’t help you Marin. Nothing has happened yet. I wouldn’t count on it happening. National health care is not the topic here.

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