Jack For Assembly

[JackNino]

This could be the most controversial of the questionnaires that I post here. It might do me more harm than good, but my plan is to be as open as possible and that includes talking about things that might be controversial.

Planned Parenthood didn't actually give me permission to reprint their questions, so instead I've included the header from each question and an explanation of what the question was asking. The answers are the actual answers that I sent to them. Their questionnaire technically only allowed me to say whether I supported or opposed their question, without adding any commentary, so I just added my commentary to the end of their questionnaire.

One thing that I didn't like is that the questions were very much phrased in such a way that not responding in favor of Planned Parenthood sounded pretty bad. I think I may have failed because my commentary started off by telling them that I didn't really like the way their questions were phrased, but I think I could have phrased my objection a little better. I also thought it was odd that they didn't want me to reproduce their questionnaire but I'm sure they had their reasons.

Anyways, without further ado, here is what I wrote to Planned Parenthood. I cut and pasted my commentary into here and then wrote the questions without looking at their sheet in an attempt to not plagarize their words. Anything in italics is commentary that wasn't in what I originally sent them. The headers that go with the questions I believe were the headers that were from their questions. The way their questions were worded is that they had a paragraph of background for their question and then the actual question and whether or not I supported the question.
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General Thought:

Cripes, I started out by leaving off the s in Thoughts above. Good work Jack. Besides that, this particular section was just some general header stuff I put on my commentary. As I mentioned above, I think I could have phrased it better.

There are a few reasons why I am including this extra material in the answers to your questions:

• The questions presented in this questionnaire (especially when taken without the preface explaining the question) are worded in such a manner that it is very difficult not to respond on the side of Planned Parenthood without sounding like an unfeeling, uncaring zealot. Even though on most of the questions I am pro-Planned Parenthood I am uncomfortable with leading questions.
  
• For complicated issues, such as the ones you are asking about, I do not believe that a person's thoughts and feelings can really be ascertained merely through yes or no answers.
  
• While I feel quite comfortable with my answers, the reasoning behind some of my answers has more to do with my feelings on the role of government, rather than a particular pro-abortion stance, and I feel it is important to make that clear.

1. PERSONAL REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH DECISION:

This question was basically whether I was in favor of abortion or not.

There are two things about this issue that relate very strongly to some opinions I have about what government's role should be:

• In any issue where there is a lot of debate and people on both sides of the issue feel very strongly about their opinion, the government should do its best to stay out of the issue and err on the side of being the least restrictive and giving people the most personal freedom.
  
  Abortion is probably the best example I can think of where I apply this thought process. Personally, I feel uncomfortable with abortion and I do not believe that if I got a woman pregnant that I could ask her to nor would I feel comfortable with her getting an abortion. I think it would haunt me for the rest of my life.
  
  That being said, that is my personal feeling about the issue, and there are plenty of people who feel the same way and plenty of people that feel differently and a great many of those on both sides of the issue feel very strongly about their feelings. As I stated above, in situations such as this I feel strongly that the government should err on not being involved and giving people the most personal freedom, which in this case is to keep abortion legal. The reason I feel that way is because if I don't believe in abortion, I don't have to consider it as an option in my personal life, but someone who does believe in abortion can consider it as an option. Therefore, from a personal first-hand viewpoint, we both have all the options we want available to us. In a hotly debated issue, I think this is the best you can hope for. Any other option, would start infringing on other people's rights.
  
  
• In any widely debated issue where making something illegal is not going to prevent it from happening, but instead force it underground and make it less safe while making normally law abiding citizens criminals, the government needs to seriously consider not making a law related to that issue.
  
  Everything that I have ever heard says that when abortions were illegal they still occurred; except that they were done very secretively and were much less safe than abortions that are done now. In a situation such as that, where making abortion legal would not stop it from happening, I think it is an error for the government to make it illegal, which ends up putting some people's health at risk while making them criminals at the same time.

2. PLANNED PARENTHOOD AS SAFETY NET PROVIDER:

This question was whether or not I supported Planned Parenthood providing other health services besides abortion.

I have no problems with Planned Parenthood as long as abortions are not being supported by the government. In the same way that I believe government shouldn't make abortions illegal because a large portion of the population supports them, I don’t think government should be paying for them because that goes against all of the people who are against abortion.

3. FUNDING FOR FAMILY PLANNING:

This question was whether or not I supported the government providing public funding for general health checks (like cancer screening) and contraceptive services. In my response I probably should have added that I think those types of services are better handled by private organizations.

Government involvement in health care is a slippery slope. Once the government is paying for one thing it is easier to add another and another until the government is paying for everything. While that sounds nice, the government paying for anything tends to have a lot of unintended consequences such as artificial price controls, the government paying for things that people don't believe in and limiting the care that people can get. Also, in general government tends to be very inefficient with anything that it is involved in.

4. COMPREHENSIVE SEX EDUCATION:

This question was basically whether or not I supported sex education being taught in schools.

I support sex education in schools. I thought the health class I had my sophomore year in high school and the short information sessions I had before then were very informative and I learned a lot. These classes included information about the various contraceptives available and their drawbacks, along with their effectiveness levels (both for when the contraceptives were used properly at all times and when they were used at a less than optimal level). We also learned about STDs and how they were transmitted and what the consequences and treatments were. We also learned about the male and female anatomy and how pregnancy happens. This was all presented very objectively. I can't remember there being anything about the class that suggested that sex was good or bad or using contraceptives was good or bad, we were just told that they existed. I am a great believer in education, and I don’t see how presenting information that contains only facts and not opinions can hurt anyone.

That being said, I absolutely believe that if a parent believes that their child should not participate in sex education classes because they want to teach the child themselves, then the parent should have that option.

5. REFUSAL OF ABSTINENCE-ONLY FUNDING:

This question was whether or not I supported refusing money from the federal government that required that education programs only teach abstinence.

I am perfectly fine with refusing money from the federal government. Money from the federal government always comes with a lot of strings attached, regardless of what it is being used for and many times I think it is Constitutionally dubious whether the federal government should even be involved.

6. CONFIDENTIAL HEALTH SERVICES:

This was a very strangely worded question. I believe what they were asking was whether or not I felt teens should be able to get abortions without parental permission but as you can see by my response I was somewhat confused.

This question was phrased in a way that I'm not sure what it is asking if I support or oppose. I believe the question is intended to ask if I think that teens should have to report to their parents that they are getting an abortion. However, if read without the preface to the question, it actually sounds more like the question being asked is whether I support confidential access for teens regardless of whether or not there are mandatory reporting laws. Phrased that way it really doesn't make sense because the "oppose" choice would seem to mean that I think they shouldn't have patient confidentiality, which seems like an unlikely question so I doubt that was the intent.

All that being said, I am OK with mandatory reporting laws. I think that abortion is way too big of an issue for a minor to be making the decision on their own without their parents or some sort of adult support. Your website states that if a minor cannot go to their parents for some reason, a judge can be used as a surrogate which seems like a reasonable compromise to me.

I have to admit that I am somewhat wishy-washy on the mandatory reporting issue. I am very much against minors making the decision to have an abortion on their own, but I can understand that there would be situations where they reasonably would not want to tell their parents. I really hate government one size fits all solutions that don't allow for exceptions because every situation is unique. I guess I am saying that I am open to alternatives.

7. EMERGENCY ROOM ACCESS TO EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTION:

This was another strangely worded question. I believe that what they were asking was whether or not I supported doctors having the right to refuse to give emergency contraception to patients in emergency rooms.

This is another strangely worded question. I initially said that I support the issue because I am all for women having easy access to emergency contraception if they want it. However, the way the preface is worded implies that the question is meant to mean would I want doctors to be required to provide emergency contraception even if it was against their beliefs. I am against requiring doctors to go against their beliefs on this issue, especially if the woman's life is not in immediate danger. I would feel less strongly about this if I didn't believe that there were going to be other people or pharmacies available that would be able to provide emergency contraception. As a side note, I do believe that regardless of their beliefs, health care providers should not be able to withhold the information that emergency contraception is available.

8. COMPASSION FOR WOMEN FIRST:

This question was another oddly worded one but basically they were asking if I supported legislation that would define a fetus as a "person" from the moment of conception.

The main reason I am opposed to this particular question is because I believe it would cause abortion to be outlawed, which as I mentioned in Question 1, I am against, regardless of my personal beliefs.

9. There does not seem to be a #9:

This was a trick on their questionnaire. It skipped #9 for some reason.

10. SCIENCE BEFORE IDEOLOGY:

In this question, they said that anti-abortion groups were supporting teaching inaccurate information in schools and asked whether or not I supported that.

I am very much against anything that does not include accurate information.