Defunding Planned Parenthood was a disaster in Texas. Congress shouldn’t do it nationally.
Women suffered after a 2011 state law.
By Joseph E. Potter and Kari White
February 7, 2017
The Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress are pushing to prevent Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funds to pay for contraception and cervical and breast cancer screenings. Funding for the federal Title X program, which provides infrastructure support to a network of nearly 4,000 clinics across the country, could also be in jeopardy.
Five years ago, we learned in Texas what can happen when efforts to defund Planned Parenthood are carried out: The network of health-care providers falls apart and women lose access to essential preventive services. Now Trump and his allies are poised to wreak the same havoc on the country that the 2011 Republican state legislature imposed on Texas.
The motivation for the Texas action was the same as the motivation for what Congress plans to do: appeasing groups opposed to legal abortion. But none of these family planning programs pay for abortion care, which the law already prohibits spending federal money on. Defunding Planned Parenthood only reduces access to contraception and other necessary health care. Indeed, by reducing unintended pregnancies, the programs Republicans want to cut Planned Parenthood out of actually reduce the number of abortions.
Continued at source: Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/02/07/defunding-planned-parenthood-was-a-disaster-in-texas-congress-shouldnt-do-it-nationally/?utm_term=.4e1e5d31934e