Dearest Gentle Readers: An Appropriations Update from Lady Budgeton, Vol. 3

Dearest gentle readers, 

While a scorching heat wave descends upon our nation’s capital and indeed much of the country, leaving us all in a state of wilting disarray, there is a distinct chill coming from the House side of the marble dome as we approach yet another week of this appropriations season. Thus, I take up my quill.

Throughout this season, certain members of the Grand Old Party have been intent on using their positions of authority to dictate matters that intimately concern our bodies and our access to vital sexual and reproductive health care services. 

This week, alas, appears no different. The House Rules committee and the House Appropriations Subcommittee will consider appropriations bills to advance the anti-abortion agenda of controlling our bodies, lives, and futures. 

Today in a House Rules meeting, the committee will consider appropriations packages for State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs; Defense, and Department of Homeland Security, paving the way to bring these bills — which have already been used to restrict access to sexual and reproductive health — to the floor for votes later in the week. The White House picked up the quill to issue veto threats that cite the harms they would inflict on reproductive health care.     

Additionally, the House Appropriations Subcommittee this week will take its red markup pen to the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies bill and Labor, Health and Human Services and Education and Related Agencies bill. Of particular import for those of us who believe personal matters should be, well, personal, and not political, is the Labor, Health and Human Services bill — which legislates and funds many matters of sexual and reproductive health care. Last year, unsurprisingly, it was used in a failed attempt to “defund” Planned Parenthood.

One cannot help but question the motives that drive these people put in power to act against the will of the people. Are they driven by a misguided sense of righteousness, or perhaps succumbing to the pressures of partisan politics? Or is it, perhaps, simply the patriarchy being the patriarchy?

Keep your wits sharp and your judgment keen, gentle readers. For in the shadowed corners of governance, ambition often conceals its true motives. But this author’s vision is sharp and, after all, sunlight is the most effective of disinfectants.

Until next time,

Lady Budgeton

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Planned Parenthood Action Fund is an independent, nonpartisan, not-for-profit membership organization formed as the advocacy and political arm of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. The Action Fund engages in educational, advocacy, and limited electoral activity, including grassroots organizing, legislative advocacy, and voter education