Saturday, December 8, 2012

Quick Question(s) - Texas Defunding Backfires and Planned Parenthood Needs a Re-write

1.    In 2011, Texas passed a two year budget that effectively cut all funding for Planned Parenthood over abortion issues, despite the fact that no Planned Parenthood clinic ever used state money to pay for abortions.  (They did perform abortions, but that service was funded by private donations.)  The Texas budget defunded any clinic that was "affiliated" with abortion providers, thus denying Planned Parenthood any state funding...even for legally available contraception.   

With poor women denied access to free contraception, Texas is now facing a Medicaid shortfall as poor women are having babies at a rate higher than expected.  It is estimated that the state Medicaid costs for these unplanned babies could go up by $273M in 2014.  The Texas legislature is now saying that they may have gone too far in lumping contraception with the abortion issue and perhaps they should re-instate funding for birth control.

???   They deny free birth control, the birth rate sky rockets and they're surprised?  What did they think was going to happen?


2.    One Texas primary care physician was quoted as saying: “I’ve debated this in Republican clubs with people--people who say it’s not the government’s role to provide family planning.  Ultimately, they’re right. But you have to look at what happens if we don’t.”

???   Planned Parenthood provides so much more than "family planning".  When are they going to get smart and change their name to something less volatile, like maybe Universal Women's Healthcare?  Why continue to emphasize the reproductive part of their practice when it makes them such an easy target?

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