Get rid of education? Sure, that's a GREAT idea!

Sometimes, the amount of absolute ignorance just astounds me.

I've been following this whole government shut down thing, and it appears that one of the hang-ups in getting something done is that the Republicans want to cut off federal funding to Planned Parenthood. Of course, they feel this is the way they're going to save all those unborn babies and God will reward them! I can see it now, John Boehner in a superhero outfit with a winged baby painted on his chest!

Of course, each of those babies will instead turn into one of the five screaming toddlers I see with one very young, disheveled single mom at HEB on Saturdays.

I realize that was a sweeping generalization. It might not have even made sense. I know that adamant pro-lifers would argue that so-and-so that the read about/saw on TV/heard speak at a pro-life convention was born because his unwed mother reconsidered her plans to have an abortion. To them I say, for every one of those cases, I could find you at least five kids whose parents are on welfare, who live in broken homes and who end up in jail or on welfare themselves.

I'm not for abortion itself. I don't think anyone is like, "yeah, let's kill babies!" (but of course, are we counting embryos as babies? Last time I checked, God hadn't gotten back to us on when life begins). Anyway, the point is, these pregnant girls, some of whom become mothers, are not getting properly educated about birth control. Or, more importantly, how to figure out if you're doing it for the right reasons (because I bet you a lot of them are doing it just because they think it's what you do in a relationship or they're afraid their boyfriend will leave them if they don't do it).

But you know who educates people about safe sex? PLANNED PARENTHOOD!!!!

Anyone with any amount of common sense will tell you that abortions are only a small percentage of what Planned Parenthood does. And, I've never been in this situation, but I bet you they're not like, Ok, so you want an abortion? Here you go! I bet there is some form of counseling or at least information-giving involved. Of course, I am talking about Republican'ts here, so I shouldn't expect common sense to come into play.

Wake up, GOP! If you do away with Planned Parenthood, people — including, perhaps especially teenagers — are not going to stop having sex. Even those good little Christian boys and girls who are taught that their bodies are bad and wrong. And what happens when good little boys and girls aren't educated? They do it without condoms. They get STDs. They don't even know they need to be tested for STDs (and when they don't even go all the way, nonetheless!). And yes, they get pregnant. Which starts the abortion debate in the first place.

If you don't believe teens need to be sexually active at all, it's your responsibility to talk to your own kids. But ultimately, they're going to find a way to do what they want. And they need to be prepared. And more importantly, there are a lot of kids out there whose parents (sadly) don't care or weren't educated themselves, so they have nowhere but places like Planned Parenthood or the school locker room to get their information.

Call me a bleeding heart. Maybe I am. But if Planned Parenthood gets taken away (or left up to the states, many of whom are bankrupt and/or have ignorant, ahem, rigidly conservative governors), expect a lot more diseases, little mouths to feed, and just plain confusion.

I understand that money is real problem right now for everybody. But let's find ways to move things around without doing away with needed services (don't tell me it can't be done; the Beeville superintendent cut the district budget by $1.1 million without laying off anybody or cutting programs!)

And don't even get me started on what they want to do to the EPA...