No Funding=No Birth Control?

In these tumultuous times of national government, the Republicans and Democrats are always struggling for power and one of the latest struggles is over government funding of family planning supplies.  Whether it be birth control or abortion funding.  An article in the New York Times entitled "The War On Women"  has the author making the point that without government funding these programs will cease to exist.  While if the free handouts stop, there are other options out there for women if they truly do want the services still made available to them.  I believe that if you have the drive to get something you can.  At the age of 19 I found a full time job that had medical benefits, albeit the job was not fun and the hours sucked, it was worth it for me to have health coverage.  All cutting government funding will do is make the people who don't want to provide for themselves to begin with to no longer have those benefits.  Those that really do want access to these "essential" services will find a way to obtain them.  The points the author makes about the "gag" rule and some of the proposed legislation such as not allowing abortions even when it endangers the life of the mother are quite well founded.  The points of the editorial are well founded and bolstered very well, although some of them I do not agree with in general the piece is very well thought out.  I do not believe the government should cut funding for some of these programs mentioned in the article but it is far from a "war on women" as the author would have you believe.

A Very Tight Rope to Walk in the Middle East

On Fox News there is an article about a man who is part of the embassy staff over in Pakistan who was detained after shooting two people who were mugging him.  Despite the fact that there were witnesses who said he shot the men in self-defense AND he has diplomatic immunity, the Pakistani's are charging him with murder.  On one hand we want to keep Pakistan as an ally in the East but on the other hand they cant just do whatever it is they want to do and disregard our laws all while getting BILLIONS of dollars in funding from the US.  While I dont disagree that they are a very good ally over in that part of the world we are also dumping billions into Iraq to rebuild it.  Why not stand up for ourselves, cut Pakistani funding and send that to help our infrastructure in Iraq.  We could make that country a much better base for our counter-terrorism operations and not have to deal with all the political backlash that comes with Pakistan.  Theyre recieving billions of dollars in aid for education and defense but as of late arent delivering on their end of the deal.  If the Pakistanis hadnt detained Davis(the American) in the first place like they did the attention wouldnt have been so high and escalated to what it is now.  Unfortunately theyre trying to feel out their boundaries with the US and it looks like its going to cost them a lot of money or the US is going to do something theyre oh too well known for, make a horrible decision by leaving a man behind.