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On NPR this morning I heard the president of Planned Parenthood lament the fact that women’s health care is “politicized. [2]” I agree that such politicization is lamentable. But such politicization is an inevitable consequence of government subsidization of, regulation of, and involvement in health care. And the more health care is subsidized by, regulated by, and meddled in by politicians and their deputies, the worse this politicization will be.
For the head of Planned Parenthood to self-righteously complain about the “politicization” of women’s health care as her organization receives hundreds of millions of dollars annually in government subsidies [3] – money forcibly extracted by government from taxpayers and then given to Planned Parenthood – is an astonishing feat of hypocrisy. No one who is ethically mature demands money from Smith and simultaneously complains when Smith expresses opinions about how that money is spent.
People – such as this head of Planned Parenthood – who use politics to seize other people’s money and who then are surprised and angry when such money comes along with attached political strings are inconceivably naive (at best). They are akin to the person who orders a kosher ham sandwich [4] – or, alternatively, they are akin to the would-be pet owner who wants a dog that flies and meows rather than one that walks and barks. Such people, in short, are detached from reality.
Those of us who point out that increased government involvement in our lives inevitably comes along with increased government controls and commands on how we act are often ridiculed as naive or alarmist. But evidence of the reality of the exact sort of government control and commands that we warn of is supplied – unwittingly – by the president of Planned Parenthood.