giving the gift of...birth control?

Really, Planned Parenthood??!? Really?

I originally found out about this while watching The Daily Show this week. Obviously the mere peculiarity of the concept of giving one of these certificates to someone as a Christmas gift is humorous. "Thanks Mom and Dad, now I can find out whether having unprotected sex with those random men has diseased my naughty bits!" I get the humor. I also get the need for health care. There's a whole generation of 20-somethings out there who, quite frankly, graduated at just the wrong time. Unless you're one of the few who were fortunate enough to have picked the right field, landed the ideal job, and subsequently were offered premium benefits, there aren't a lot of options. You're too old to be covered by your parents. You can find a mediocre and (hopefully) tentative job which offers less than stellar benefits, but you'll have to keep a certain amount of hours. This is fine, unless you're trying to make it through a graduate degree in order to get yourself out of the mess you're in. You can pay out of your pocket, which doesn't help your financial situation either. Or, like most I know, you can risk going without and just hope you don't find yourself buried in medical debt years later. Which is just stupid.

If the health care situation is so dire that Planned Parenthood is taking action, shouldn't we be making efforts to make basic health care available to those in need first?

I am, by no means, supporting this. I am mostly just astounded by it. I have no idea who they believe will be putting one of these suckers under their tree this holiday. And I'm hoping they were aware of the backlash they would receive. If not, I mock them for being so clueless.