After the boondoggle of public funding that is the Florida Marlins stadium and now news that the cash-strapped state of Minnesota will apportion $443 million to build the Minnesota Vikings a new stadium (for all those games that they win), it's become clear that sports franchises can get whatever chunk of public funds they want, to spend however they please, with little to no oversight.
This must sound delightful to Planned Parenthood, which is finding itself defunded by more and more states, despite adhering to strict spending and disclosure rules. Whereas sports franchises can blow millions on whatevs, even if Planned Parenthood proves on quarterly basis that they are not using one public dollar for abortion services, conservative legislatures will still yank their funding based on nothing more than an unfounded suspicion.
This doesn't take a rocket scientist: Planned Parenthood needs to start buying sports franchises. Cities, especially midsize urban areas, are desperate for professional sports franchises, which (supposedly) generate commerce and (supposedly) revitalize downtowns. Planned Parenthood can locate municipalities within states that have defunded the organization (see Texas and Arizona), and dangle an expansion basketball team or the Oakland A's in exchange for hundreds of millions in stadium funds. Poof: the Carolina Panthers are now the Lubbock Panthers, and there will be a very well-funded women's health clinic near the bottom of Buddy Holly Stadium, by the Peggy Sue craft beer stand.
Whereas PP funds are under heavy scrutiny, what's good for the team is good for the city in the sports world. And as PP's critics are so fond of reminding everybody, money is fungible: just because you take in $200 or $300 billion for a stadium doesn't mean it all goes into the cement mix. So, Lubbock women, if you need breast cancer screenings or preventative care, it's covered. If the rest of Lubbock has a problem with that, well, the team can always pick up and move. I hear Phoenix is nice.*
There will also be benefits to housing Planned Parenthood in a giant concrete fortress. Protesters blocked the front entrance to the woman's health clinic? S'cool, use entrances 2-49. That's if the protestors get anywhere the entrance: parking will, I repeat, will be something of a hassle, and a giant security force will make sure that guests of the stadium can get in and out without being harassed; that's their job.
And for once taxpayer money will be spent on making people better and healthier, as opposed to, well, the alternative. Because if it's okay to take millions of public funds and spend it on a neon-cosmic-dolphin-hatted-purple-island-portal sculpture, it's okay to spend it on women's health.**
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* Phoenix is not nice.
** Yes, I'm aware of the difference between local, state, and federal funds.
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