The ODE runs a story today about the Family Planning Expansion Project:

Some members of the gay community on campus say a much-lauded federal program that offers free family planning services, among them sexually transmitted infections screening and oral contraceptives, is discriminatory.

The Family Planning Expansion Project, funded by a federal grant, was started in 1999 to provide comprehensive family planning services to low-income men and women and reduce unintended pregnancies, according to the 2005 Oregon FPEP Program Manual.

Reporter Susan Goodwin goes on to describe how many people feel that this is discriminatory. Two points:

1. This program shouldn’t exist in the first place. It isn’t the federal government’s job to discourage breeding.
2. The purpose of the program is to reduce unintended pregnancies. As far as I know, only heterosexual coupling can lead to unintended pregnancies. Thus, the program targets heterosexuals. Complaining that this is discriminatory towards homosexuals is like a man complaining that his HMO won’t cover birth control pills for his own personal use. Of course it’s discriminatory, but that doesn’t mean it’s insititutionalized bigotry. If the purpose of the program was to reduce reduce STDs, then it would be open to people of all sexual orientations.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 9th, 2006 at 13:59 by Ian and is filed under Jeebus, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.