Planned Parenthood funding cuts no solution

Say what you want about Richard Nixon, but he had much more on the ball than Terry Branstad, Bob Vander Plaats and Rod Roberts. Those three Republican gubernatorial wannabes favor eliminating any state funding to Planned Parenthood, the largest contraceptive provider in the state of Iowa.

It was Nixon's view that “no American woman should be denied access to family planning assistance because of her economic condition” and that the United States “should establish as a national goal the provision of adequate family planning services to all those who want them but cannot afford them” (special message to Congress on “Problems of population growth,” President Richard Nixon, July 18, 1969.)

If Branstad, Vander Plaats and Roberts want to stay in bed with the anti-Planned Parenthood crowd, that's their prerogative. But cutting family planning money to Planned Parenthood clinics in Iowa will have immediate results: the unplanned pregnancy rate will go up, along with the abortion rate.

I never thought I'd miss Nixon.

Libby Gotschall Slappey

Cedar Rapids