Are you tearing your hair out over abortion restrictions in Texas? I sure as hell am!
The latest blow to women’s health has been dealt by Republican Governor Greg Abbott, who has signed off on a two-year state budget that prevents Planned Parenthood from participating in the Breast and Cervical Cancer Services program. The joint state-federal program provides free cancer screenings for uninsured, low-income Texas women. A provision of the budget stipulates that clinics affiliated with abortion providers cannot receive funding from the program. (Planned Parenthood clinics were already prohibited, under state law, from performing abortions at any location that accepted taxpayer dollars. So, it’s just their “association” with abortion providers that now renders them ineligible for the program’s funding.)
“It’s really incredible how low the governor and some of the state legislators will go when you start throwing women out of cancer screening programs and making it impossible for them to continue to go get services where they have before,” PPFA President Cecile Richards said in an interview with The Texas Tribune.
Planned Parenthood served about 10 percent of participants in the Breast and Cervical Cancer Services program last year—about 3,000 women. Some of the Planned Parenthood clinics may still receive funding for cancer screening if there are no other adequate clinics in the area. “I think Texas has really put [Planned Parenthood] to the test,” Richards said, “and I think we’ve demonstrated we’re not going anywhere.”
We stand with Texas women who have the right to adequate healthcare—treated as the right that it is, not as a political game played by old men.
Image via PBS
Read More On Bust.com:
Birth Control Over The Counter? Finally!
Here’s What You NEED To Know About The Proposed 20-Week Abortion Ban
The Abortion Drone Makes Its First Flight To Poland
