Texas vs. Women's Health

There are many things that the Texas government does that frustrates me beyond belief, but the legislators' "War against Women" took the cake last fall, when Republicans cut women's health funding by 75% in order to "stop abortions" and contraceptives, targeted especially at Planned Parenthood. Several hundred thousand women (mostly low income) lost access to important women's health services, such as well-woman exams, breast exams, pregnancy and STD screening, birth control counselling, pap smears, and other important health services.

What were they thinking? Apparently, they thought it would be a good way to kill two birds with one stone: budget cutting and furthering their pro-life and anti-contraceptive agenda by encroaching on family planning centers' and women's rights. The fact of the matter is, they aren't making a difference in preventing abortion (only 3% of services offered by Planned Parenthood are abortion), they are ruining lives by limiting access to vital health services. 300,000 women will lose access to these services, resulting in 20,000 unwanted pregnancies (which would cost tax-payers $273 million.) Legislators either were too stupid to realize the ramifications of these budget cuts, or simply didn't care.

Seemingly, they wised up a little last month, and plan to add $100 million back into women's health by adding women's services to the state run primary care program. This is relieving, but leaves many still frustrated at the fact that lawmakers will do anything to prevent abortion, even if it makes everyone's lives worse. In my opinion, to limit abortions, lawmakers should focus on sex-education (not the unhelpful abstinence only but REAL sex education) and making contraceptives like the birth control pill cheaper and much more easily accessible to all women.

Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/us/texas-may-restore-some-family-planning-budget-cuts.html?_r=0
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/PPFA/PP_by_the_Numbers.pdf
http://www.npr.org/2011/09/20/140449957/gov-perry-cut-funds-for-womens-health-in-texas