Parks & Recreation

So, about two years ago, I donated graphic design services to a very nice lady who was running for the city council. During the course of the campaign, I mentioned to this very nice lady who happens to have a very cute Boxer dog that it sure would be nifty if our town had a dog park. She agreed! And when she got elected, she proposed a dog park for the city, and the city approved it. Yay!

Obviously, I loooooooove the dog park to which we take Dudley and Zelda, but it is a half hour drive each way, for two dogs who combined have about 15 minutes of stamina. So it would be very nice to have a dog park closer to home.

Now, I'm not going to say that our little town in this lovely state with the terrible garbage governor is slow to get things done, ahem, but that dog park, which was going to be converted from an existing but unused baseball field to which water pipes were already run, was supposed to be finished last spring. Then last fall. Then this April. And it's still not done.

Mama Shakes heard from the very nice lady on the city council last month that it's now scheduled to be done this month.

A few minutes ago, I decided to call the Parks Department and see if it's finished yet. The woman to whom I spoke was very nice.

Me: Hi, I was wondering if you could tell me if the dog park at Bleepbloop Park is open yet.

Nice Woman: No, it's not open yet.:-(

Me: Oh, okay. Do you know when it's scheduled to open?

Nice Woman: Nooooooo???:-/???...!?

[long pause]

Me: Um, okay, well, I heard it was scheduled to open this month. Do you know if that's correct?

Nice Woman: I would hope it's going to be this month!:-)!!!

Me: [deep breath] Yep, me too. Anyway, I am looking at the city website right now—

[which, as an aside, is one glittering gif and a "Greensleeves" midi file away from a Geocities site created by Jukt Micronics]

—and I can't find any information—

[about ANYTHING!]

—on the dog park; is there someplace that I can go for updates so I don't have to keep driving over there heh heh or bothering you heh heh to see if it's open?

Nice Woman: You're probably better off just calling us…:-/

Me: Okay, thank you so much for your help, goodbye!

* * *

Mind you, there is an almost entirely fenced-in, rather large, and extremely beautiful park almost directly behind our house which would have made a perfect city dog park. Especially since the park is almost entirely disused by everyone but the addicts who do heroin there, one of whom recently died of an overdose in the Port-a-Potty inexplicably sat in the park. Oh, and also Iain and me and the very nice city council lady who also walks her very cute Boxer there.

But the city reportedly did not want to put a dog park in that park because addicts use it since it's basically a huge abandoned park and are you following this awesome logic of not reclaiming a neglected space because it's gotten scary in the void created by inattention?

Anyway. We still don't have a dog park.

A Bit of Good News

In Kansas, U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten has ordered the state to immediately resume funding for Planned Parenthood:

WICHITA, Kan. -- A federal judge on Monday blocked implementation of a new Kansas law that would strip federal family planning funding from the state's Planned Parenthood chapter, dealing Republican lawmakers their second major legal setback to their recent moves against abortion providers.

[...]

Planned Parenthood said it would be forced to close its clinic in the western Kansas city of Hays unless the court immediately prohibited the state from stripping it of $330,000 in federal Title X annual funding. It contended that its 5,700 patients would also face higher costs and have less access to services and longer wait or travel times for appointments.

[...]

Monday's hearing was the first legal test of the statute. Planned Parenthood is challenging its constitutionality based on the Supremacy Clause, which prohibits states from imposing conditions of eligibility on federal programs that are not required by federal law.

Kansas has defended the statute as a matter of state sovereignty, arguing that an injunction would unconstitutionally replace the state's discretion with the court's judgment.

This is the second in good rulings in favor of access and care in Kansas. Last month, an injunction was granted against the new licensing regulations that essentially put two clinics out of business.

***

In Indiana, the Indiana Housing Community and Development Authority--NOT the Family and Social Services Administration which typically handles financial distribution/oversight of health care services and federal/state money--has granted Planned Parenthood of Indiana $6,000 in neighborhood assistance grants.

Planned Parenthood of Indiana President and CEO Betty Cockrum says the $6,000 should help the group leverage $12,000 in donations.

The Authority wasn't going to give the money because of the garbage law that worked to defund the organization but decided to after Judge Pratt's injunction against the law in June.

Keystone Legislators

One of the inevitable problems of a democracy in which the populace becomes deeply jaded about the government's efficacy and decency is that, eventually, very few people are interested in doing the job. And many of the ones who are interested are complete numpties:

Gov. Mitch Daniels has signed an order restoring Indiana's largest state agency after it was accidentally eliminated due to a mistake in a new state law.

Daniels signed an executive order late Thursday to maintain the Family and Social Services Administration, which manages Medicaid and other major programs for Indiana's poor, elderly and disabled, according to The Journal-Gazette of Fort Wayne.

Daniels' spokeswoman, Jane Jankowski, said an apparent clerical drafting error in the preparation of the law resulted in the agency being repealed as of June 30.

...The FSSA elimination may be an extreme example, but it's not the first time this year that flaws were found in legislation from the 2011 session.

"We have had some clerical errors that seem to be more than I can recall in the past," conceded House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis.

...Bosma said leadership in the House and Senate is "addressing the issue" of the recent mistakes with the Legislative Services Agency, the nonpartisan state agency that reviews legal and fiscal legislation.

Yeesh.

Of course, for Republicans, who want to decrease the size of government to virtually nothing but defense, incompetency is a handy way of further diminishing the People's trust in their government, creating a more welcoming environment for anti-government rhetoric. So, this shit isn't so much a bug as a feature.

The Road to Hell

Last Friday Judge Tanya Walton Pratt ruled that Indiana cannot defund Planned Parenthood and also suspended part of the recently-passed law that stated that doctors must tell patients that fetuses (at any gestational age) feel pain. Judge Walton Pratt has temporarily upheld the part of the law that said doctors are required to tell patients "life begins at fertilization".

The Indy Star became curious, after the ruling, about just how much input doctors had when it came to drafting the legislation & its subsequent passage. They found what they call "startling answers". Though I'm not particularly startled myself.

Doctors were not entirely shut out of the legislative process. The Indiana State Medical Association chose to pass up its chance to publicly weigh in on the abortion bill and took no position on it. And doctors did have some influence on the bill. After hearing testimony from an oncologist with the IU Simon Cancer Center, lawmakers removed a provision requiring doctors to tell patients that abortion is linked to breast cancer.

The Star found strong evidence, however, that medical considerations were secondary at best. In interviews last week, the lawmaker who drafted the fetal-pain clause admitted she had consulted no scientific studies.

Of course she didn't! Rep. Sue Ellspermann (R-Ferdinand) who wrote the fetal pain bit said outright that she did not consult any doctors, scientific studies, or scientists. She said that "she had seen video footage 'of the baby (in the womb) shying away from the needle'" and THAT was all the proof she needed. Who needs accurate scientific information when drafting legislation that affects an untold number of women? Not Indiana! And WAY TO GO Indiana State Medical Association. Nice of you to sit this one out. Really.

There is, of course, more:

Since the law took effect six weeks ago, The Star has learned, doctors at IU and Wishard hospitals stopped offering to terminate pregnancies for about 70 patients, including many with complications that put the patient's health at serious risk or where there was no possibility the fetus would survive. The IU School of Medicine's faculty practice determined that its doctors had to take that step to comply with the law, despite the fact that the law exempts hospitals.

The IU doctors are part of a private practice not technically employed by the hospitals, and therefore they do not fit under the language of the exemption.

These doctors -- and likely many others -- had to choose from a limited range of treatment options or send patients out of state for terminations after the law took effect May 10.

The law was aimed at cutting off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood of Indiana. But the IU doctors feared that if they continued to terminate pregnancies -- even in cases where it was medically advisable -- they would also lose the ability to treat Medicaid clients, who make up a substantial portion of their cases.

[...]

Elizabeth Ferries-Rowe, chief of obstetrics and gynecology for Wishard, said in a letter to The Star that the legislature and Daniels had "tied the hands of physicians attempting to provide medically appropriate, evidence-based care in the setting of routine obstetrics and gynecology" in "a politically motivated move to de-fund Planned Parenthood."

Ferries-Rowe, who described herself as a Catholic, said Wishard continued treating women in mortal danger, such as those suffering from ectopic pregnancies -- when a fertilized egg implants outside the uterus.

But she said she would be unable to terminate the pregnancy of a woman whose amniotic membranes had ruptured at 16 weeks with complete loss of fluid. Under those circumstances, Ferries-Rowe said in an interview, the baby would likely be born so early that it wouldn't survive, and a woman who chose not to terminate the pregnancy would run the risk of sepsis, which can cause permanent organ damage, loss of limbs, brain damage or death.

She said no IU School of Medicine doctor was able to give a patient the option of abortion even in the case of congenital fetal anomaly incompatible with life -- in other words, zero chance of survival.

The consequences of the defunding law were particularly significant for IU School of Medicine doctors because they treat women with high-risk pregnancies who have been referred by other health providers across the state.

The Family and Social Services Administration is "taking steps" to clarify the hospital exemption but it will take months. Those months are time that women DO NOT HAVE.

When made aware of these consequences, Sen. Scott Schneider (who wrote the defunding amendment) said:

"This was not the intent."

This. Was. Not. The. Intent. I'm sure you, Sen. Schneider, thought you had "good intentions" when coming up with that dreadful legislation (though I profoundly disagree). Well, you know what they say about good intentions, don't you? The road to hell--but you aren't the one being forced to walk down the road you created now are you?

The Texas House Wants to Be Indiana

I'm sorry, Texas:

The House approved a sprawling health care savings bill Monday that abortion-rights opponents hailed as a historic step toward de-funding Planned Parenthood and limiting abortion. Democrats, though, warned the bill includes permission for Texas to join an interstate health care compact, which they said could lead to a state takeover of the management of elderly Texans' federal Medicare benefits.

Meanwhile, in the Regarbagican aspirational state of Indiana, a federal court has put on hold parts of similar anti-abortion legislation, which has had the consequence of causing doctors at Indiana University and Wishard Memorial hospitals to stop offering abortion services, "including in cases where the woman's health was at serious risk and where there was no possibility the fetus would survive," because they're unclear how to comply with the law.

The anti-choicers have evidently figured out that, failing actual criminalization of abortion, they can just create a nightmarescape of confusion about whether and how to provide abortions at all.

[H/Ts to Shakers Harmony and Brian.]

Must-Read: "Planned Parenthood Stops Seeing Medicaid Patients"

Just go read the whole thing.

As I noted on Tuesday, anti-choicers are making arguments like, "[Planned Parenthood has] made it clear what their priority is. They wouldn't stop providing abortions even in the interim to keep the women's health services," and state Republicans are making arguments like, "If [Planned Parenthood] wants to receive taxpayer money, they can simply stop practicing abortion," in order to try to spin this defunding horseshit as Planned Parenthood's responsibility.

But the women (and men) who use Planned Parenthood aren't fooled. They want access to abortion, and they want access to Planned Parenthood, which means they don't want Planned Parenthood to trade away abortion services in exchange for funding.

Indiana conservatives are banking on low-income women being stupid. That is a very bad bet.

I Write Letters

Dear Governor Mitch Daniels:

You may take away our healthcare services, you may privatize our public amenities, you may undermine our infrastructure, you may sabotage our school system, you may crumble our sidewalks, but you cannot rob us of the indescribable sweetness of the first ears of ripe Indiana corn each summer.


A cornfield near our house, on yet another stormy day.
I mean, I'm sure you're plotting away to ruin that, too, but IN THE MEANTIME we are going to love our corn on the cob, we are going to eat it raw and boil it and cook it in its own husk on the grill and get its glorious golden tassels stuck between our teeth, and we are going to savor the taste of being a Hoosier and remember that there are still things to love about this state, even as you endeavor to destroy every last one of them.

No Love,
Liss

Planned Parenthood Takes a Furlough Day in Indiana

*rage*seethe*boil*

After my garbage governor, Mitch "The Blade" Daniels signed into law a bill defunding Planned Parenthood in Indiana, the healthcare provider, which serves 85,000 people, including 9,300 Medicaid patients, has stayed open and continued to provide care to Hoosiers with more than $100,000 in donations, but, after state funding ran out Monday, Planned Parenthood Indiana will "will stop treating Medicaid patients and lay off two of its three STD specialists," and will also "close all its clinics on Wednesday and send employees home without pay" to save funds.

"Our 9,300 Medicaid patients, including those who had appointments Tuesday, are going to see their care disrupted," said Betty Cockrum, president of Planned Parenthood of Indiana.

The provider typically receives about $1.3 million a year in Medicaid funds, about 10 percent of its total budget. The new law also strips Planned Parenthood of roughly $150,000 in funding for prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, money that paid for three intervention specialists -- health workers who track down the partners of someone who tests positive for an STD and ensure they are tested and treated. Two of those specialists, who were based in Muncie, have been laid off, and a third, in Lafayette, is now employed in a different capacity.

That leaves Planned Parenthood with a single specialist, in Lafayette.

...Sue Swayze, legislative director for Indiana Right to Life, said that with Monday's reduction in services, Planned Parenthood has "made it clear what their priority is."

"They wouldn't stop providing abortions even in the interim to keep the women's health services," she said.

ABORTION IS A HEALTH SERVICE, YOU MENDACIOUS GARBAGEBRAIN!

State Sen. Scott Schneider, R-Indianapolis, who authored the defunding language, echoed that criticism in legislative debate in April.

"If (Planned Parenthood) wants to receive taxpayer money," he said, "they can simply stop practicing abortion."

As if "taxpayers" and "people who need/want abortions" are mutually exclusive groups.

Honestly, I have never been so furious at the collection of dipfucks and miscreants running this state as I am right now.

[H/T to @PPact.]