PLANNED PARENTHOOD VS NRA?

by Ruth A. Sheets

OK, It's happened, one of the most ridiculous things I have read concerning the NRA, probably, ever.  The article, "Planned Parenthood's Absolutism"  came from thefederalist.com, a Conservative website.  The author, Michael Graham compared Planned Parenthood with the NRA as though they were politically equivalent.  He called Planned Parenthood  "the NRA of the Democratic Party, only worse."  He says this proves you don't need a gun to be a bully, implying Planned Parenthood bullies Democratic candidates more than NRA does Republicans.  Ha! 

So, Are these organizations actually comparable?  Well, maybe.  They are both organizations.  Both have lobbyists.  Both have political goals.  Both have  many supporters.  Both claim to stand for people's rights.  Both have . . . I can't think of anything else they have in common.

The NRA is predominantly a male organization that celebrates a perceived macho way of relating to the world involving guns, lots of them, particularly for white men.  The Second Amendment supposedly gives anyone in America the right to "keep and bear arms."  In their eyes, everyone should, well, maybe not exactly everyone.  

Planned Parenthood is predominantly a women's group whose purpose is to assist with women's reproductive health and family planning in all its manifestations.  Alas, women's rights must be implied here, as male-dominated legislatures just couldn't bear to pass the Equal Rights Amendment.  The Action Fund branch of their organization (very much separate), does work to see that women actually do get to have some reproductive rights, choice.

The article claims each group is inextricably tied to a particular party.  Then, each party can only do what the organization wants it to do or lose its support.  I suspect Republicans who have found Planned Parenthood services invaluable and Democratic gun owners might quibble a bit with this assessment, but there is some truth here.

It seems to me there is a deep something more that sets these organizations apart.  That is, their purpose or mission.  The NRA promotes guns, almost any gun.  It tries to stop legislation that would in any way limit gun ownership.  Its phrase of note, "guns don't kill people, people kill people."  However, the NRA member's life will be only tangentially effected if he can't have a particular gun.  There will always be other guns and other opportunities for shooting.  Even if the gun-owner is careful, just having the gun can put himself and others at risk since a gun is designed as an instrument of death.

Planned Parenthood is not a club with members who share an interest like guns.  It is a collection of like-minded health care providers and their supporters who help families navigate the challenges of family planning.  Seeking Planned Parenthood for help could be a life and death occasion.  Life will be different in nearly immeasurable ways based on the choices the woman makes with the help of the people supporting her.  The woman's choice will possibly affect her family, but few beyond that will feel in any real way the impact of the decision.  It is and ought to be private.

But, not to many Conservatives, particularly members of some religions, women are baby makers.  They have no say in planning their family as even birth control is not "God's will."  When women do get pregnant, they must stay pregnant despite the impact on their health, the family's economy, or any other critical factor.  "Too bad.  God must have wanted you pregnant and if your life is at risk, Oh well, that's just what it is to be a woman."  What utter nonsense!

I am trying to see how anything NRA stands for comes even close to having such an impact.  For most religious people, guns are barely relevant.  They kill, but that's just because some people are mentally ill and  . . .  Yet the NRA men and their token women have more power than Planned Parenthood will probably ever have in influencing legislators.  Why, they have a candidate report card and make sure the media regularly broadcasts the candidates' grades.

I suspect Mr. Graham was trying to get his readers, Conservative white men to see their gun "cause" as justifiable because it involves their rights.  He wants them to think of Planned Parenthood as nothing more than a political lobby that pushes women into abortions they don't want and shouldn't be able to have anyway.  Why this was worth writing is unclear.  But, it's another way to attempt to dismiss the work of Planned Parenthood as unnecessary, another special interest group that tosses its money around.  The NRA cause is about securing Constitutional rights.  Planned Parenthood is about denying rights to the unborn.  Wow!  That's pretty powerful.  Except,  perhaps, this is just another guy who knows nothing of women.  As usual, he is trying to equate a woman's need with a man's want and justify it in the only way he can.  He sets up a caring service organization next to a wealthy, self-serving group of male gun owners, makes political spending comparisons, and calls its actions worse.  

Planned Parenthood leaves a legacy of women they serve having control in their lives.  NRA leaves a legacy of mass shootings, suicides, accidental deaths, and murders by some people who have no business having access to guns.  Hmmm!  I wonder . . . .