That’s because Texas health officials ruled Tuesday that Planned Parenthood will no longer receive funding through the state’s Medicaid program. According to The Texas Tribune, thousands of low-income women in the state could be affected. Planned Parenthood previously received $3.1 million a year in funding from Medicaid, but that will will end in 30 days.
While Planned Parenthood provides abortions, the funding the organization receives from Medicaid goes toward health services such as well-women visits, and STD and birth control screenings.
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Texas state officials are using the release of controversial undercover videos of Planned Parenthood officials discussing the use of fetal tissue for research as the reason for the cut, claiming that the organization “violated state and federal law,” per the Tribune. (Planned Parenthood says its health centers in Texas don’t donate fetal tissue for research.)
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Let’s back up a moment here. Yes, Planned Parenthood performs abortions and yes, abortions are controversial procedures—no one is arguing that. But just 3 percent of the organization’s services are abortions, per Planned Parenthood. That means the bulk of the services the organization provides help women detect cancer early, increasing the odds that they will beat the disease, screen for STDs, and provide general reproductive care. They also provide birth control so that women can prevent an unwanted pregnancy, lowering the odds that they’ll seek an abortion in the first place.
No matter how you feel about abortion, these are services that women direly need. And if low-income women don’t get them from Planned Parenthood, they don’t get them at all. In my opinion, Texas is implying that they’re not concerned with economically disadvantaged women detecting and receiving treatment for uterine, breast, or ovarian cancer. All of these cancers are treatable if caught early. But without early detection, women can and will die from diseases when they don’t have to.
Conservatives often use religion as a reason for targeting Planned Parenthood, largely due to the abortion services they provide. But I’m a Christian who supports a woman’s right to choose what she does with her body—and I know many others who do, too. I also support a woman’s right to safe, reliable, and affordable reproductive care, and I’m pretty sure it would be hard for anyone, regardless of their religious beliefs, to argue against that, although some lawmakers in Texas are clearly trying to do just that.
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I’ve heard the argument before: Women shouldn’t have sex if they aren’t ready to have a child, but weirdly enough, I’ve never heard someone use that lame excuse for a man. And, last I checked, it takes two people to make a baby. People are going to have sex before they’re ready to have a baby—it is what it is—and preventing couples from having the ability to avoid an unwanted pregnancy is just wrong. Preventing women from having access to affordable reproductive care is atrocious.
I’m now the mother of two children, and I waited another 10 years after my first trip to Planned Parenthood to be in a position where I was mentally and financially ready to be a parent. Isn’t it only fair that other women, regardless of their income, get to have the same right?
Let’s just call this what it is: a direct assault on women.