The Orange County Board of Supervisors today voted 5-0 to give 30 days for study of how to stop money flowing to Planned Parenthood  via the Coalition of OC Community Clinics.  The Supervisors argue that since Planned Parenthood performs abortions and the Supervisors don’t support abortion, then no county money should flow to Planned Parenthood. Supervisor Norby said Planned Parenthood “performs 35% of the abortions in the country.” Â
Supervisor Bates negotiated the 30 days until a final decision with Moorlach, who favored cutting off funding immediately. Â Bates wants an audit of all service providers for the Coalition of Orange County Community Clinics and all other recipients of TSR and Measure H funds to find out if any abortions are being performed in the facilities. Â Bates also considers referring a client of these health care centers to any abortion service provider, paid with county funds or not, to be unacceptable. Â Bates is concerned that there may be county hospitals which perform partial birth abortions which receive funds from the county.
The Supervisors want the Health Care Agency (HCA) to find other sources and even create sources for delivering the same type of care while delivering the agenda of the Supervisors. Â The HCA came under fire from Moorlach, who stated that he feels staff acted either ” deliberately or accidentally” to conceal the role of Planned Parenthood in healthcare delivery.Â
The matter will come back in 30 days with the necessary reports from counsel and staff to allow termination of this contract.  It is entirely possible that other care providers may find their contracts under fire at that time.  The money  for immunization tracking was not effected at this time.  However, the Supervisors are indicating they are inclined to let that contract not be renewed when it ends in June 2009.
The Orange County healthcare system is already fragile. Â There is no county hospital, so the Community Coalition was formed to cobble together a healthcare safety net. Â Today, the Supervisors took a knife to the safety net and started hacking away just as fast as they can.
Write, call, email and meet with your Supervisor to get them to understand this is not acceptable!
PS – I’m working on a special treat – comments from Pastor Wylie Drake who was at the meeting!
Coming Up Later: Â More comments, analysis, and video from the meeting!
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The money flowing to Planned Parenthood for immunization tracking is not being taken away at this time. Â However, the Supervisors said they expect to not renew the contract when it comes up in June 2009 for renewal.
We desperately need to get some Democrats on the Board of Supervisors! We all need to remember this next time an election for Supervisor comes up.
This is abominable. These Supervisors(unanimous vote) are not representing the majority of their constitutents in Orange County. Rather they are representing their own personal bias. I have seen what this kind of action does to women and teenagers as I have lived through the back-alley abortion period particularly during the last great Depression. Most of the funds spent by Planned Parenthood go towards education, health services(other that abortions) to women and teens. If you care to protect your teens from HIV/AIDs and other STDs and also preventive education regarding pregnancy and for yourng men education for taking responsibility for their actions, you will protest this action being taken by the Supervisors. And, if they proceed, you will as I will work to defeat their reelection to this or any other office. I, and many other Christians and non- Christians, find this not only a biased view but a cruel decision particularly now during the economic downturn and greatest need.