Apropos of nothing, it’s really nice when what looks like a hotly-contested wedge issue is actually a simple, easily-correctable misunderstanding. [contented pause, sigh] On another note entirely: OH SAY! The state of New Hampshire declined to renew Planned Parenthood’s contract to provide contraception to low-income women. Executive Councilor Raymond Wieczorek—who, barring some as-yet-unrealized medical advance, will never be pregnant—had this to say:

“I am opposed to providing condoms to someone. If you want to have a party, have a party, but don’t ask me to pay for it.”

You guys, this would make complete sense, but for two things:

1) Women don’t actually always consent to having sex.

2) Even when they do, public health decisions, and the way in which those decisions work for or against the common good, in fact operate according to a different set of parameters than What Raymond Wieczorek Approves of and Wishes To Pay For.

(This is why, for example, public hospital emergency rooms in New Hampshire do not call the good Executive Councilor every time someone shows up, to make sure the would-be patient has moral clearance. “Yes, Councilor Wieczorek? Sorry to bother you again. Boy, when there’s a full moon on a Saturday all you-know-what breaks loose, am I right? Ha ha ha! Annnnyhoo, there’s a guy here who’s been shot, and also a lady who hurt herself bicycling to work. Obviously, since the hospital receives state funds I do need to call and ask for your opinion on the right to bear arms, and, also, whether you think road bicyclists are green warriors saving the planet or dadgummed hippies that make you late for work. Quick as you can, please and thanks.”)

There. Easy-peasy. Simple matter of clearing up a couple of misconceptions.

Not unlike this post from Live Action, which seems to impart some sinister motive to the fact that Planned Parenthood continues to provide (privately-funded) abortion services in New Hampshire, even after it lost the state contract to provide contraception to low-income women. Here’s what the post says:

Why does Planned Parenthood cut contraception and cancer screenings first? Answer: because it’s been all about abortion all along.

Hooooookay. Let’s back up. Planned Parenthood of New Hampshire does more than one thing at once. It does one thing (provide contraceptives to low-income women) that used to get state funding, but does no longer. Then it does this other thing (performs abortions) which is privately funded. You know, I feel like an analogy might be helpful here. Try this. I, also, do more than one thing at once. I get haircuts, and I also bake cookies sometimes. So if you were to if you cut my hair—so that I’ve got less hair than I did previously, dig?—and then I go home and offer my friends cookies, how much do the two have to do with one another? Very little, in fact. Hence it does not actually follow that all along I’ve been a secretly-bald saboteur of low-carb diets.

There. All cleared up. I feel like singing a vintage Noxzema jingle.