Planned Parenthood Hurts Women’s Health Program Over De-Funding
The news of the Obama Administration’s decision to coerce Texas into including Planned Parenthood in the Medicaid-funded Women’s Health Program has been widespread. The administration has demanded that the abortion committer be included or all federal funding to the program will cease permanently.
What has remained virtually unknown, however, is that Planned Parenthood itself called for the destruction of the Women’s Health Program, in the event that they were barred from participating.
In
May 2011, Planned Parenthood lobbied in Austin, Texas against new rules
that banned abortion providers and any abortion affiliates from
receiving funds under the Texas Women’s Health Program. The abortion
giant heavily promoted a lobby day to get supporters to beseech their
state representatives to grant funding to Planned Parenthood under WHP
rules. They distributed a letter to the Lieutenant Governor and two
high-ranking senate members calling for the bill that would have renewed
the program to be killed.
From the letter: “We [Planned Parenthood] believe this legislation is harmful to Texas women’s health and wastes millions of taxpayer dollars… We encourage you to amend SB 1854 or not pass it at all.” Planned Parenthood called the bill banning the abortion provider “constitutionally abhorrent, fiscally irresponsible,” and claimed it would have left women without care.
Furthermore, the abortion business threatened legal action: “Planned Parenthood is obligated to sue the State of Texas in order to ensure that all low-income Texans who rely on Planned Parenthood for their family planning needs…can continue to access their chosen and trusted health care provider.” No doubt, Planned Parenthood knew quite well that the bill contained a provision stating that if an abortion entity sued and won, that the entire program would shut down.
Planned Parenthood even called on president Cecile Richards to give a speech at a poorly attended lobbying rally. At the rally, Richards called the exclusion of Planned Parenthood “political blackmail,” and called for the complete destruction of the program if they were not included. Earlier she told legislators to “stop playing politics with women’s health and start focusing on what you were elected to do.”
Senate Bill 1854 did not pass. Instead, the legislature approved a budget that renewed the Women’s Health Program without funding Planned Parenthood or any clinic affiliated with an abortion business. The request to renew the program—with the new Pro-Life rules—was sent to the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services, where it was denied last week because it excluded the abortion provider.
Richards got her wish: the federal government refused to renew the program without Planned Parenthood, and now thousands of women will be without care because of Planned Parenthood’s spiteful political manipulation which was supported by Barack Obama.
What is ironic is that while Richards told state officials to stop playing politics with women’s health, that is exactly what Planned Parenthood did in May and what Obama is doing now. Obama is refusing to grant women legitimate services all because his favorite abortion provider was left out.
Planned Parenthood’s hypocrisy is revolting. The organization’s own website states that their mission is “provide comprehensive reproductive and complementary health care services in settings which preserve and protect the essential privacy and rights of each individual.” However, they are only concerned with women receiving reproductive services if they are the ones providing it, and ushering them into the abortion-infested world Planned Parenthood inhabits.
LifeNews.com Note: Sarah Crawford writes for Texas Right to Life.
http://www.lifenews.com/2011/12/26/planned-parenthood-hurts-womens-health-program-over-de-funding/
P.S. Stay out of mine and my daughters vagina. Dont need the rosary in the ovaries
It is only biased if you are pro abortion
Quoting _Kissy_:
Lifenews? Thats not biased at all..dont like abortion, dont have one
They didn't call for it's destruction in the event that they were barred, they called for the destruction of legislation they believe to be harmful to women's health.
I don't get this phrase. I have never, ever met someone who thought every pregnancy should end in an abortion.
I have, however, met many who were pro choice, meaning you make your own medical decisions for your own body.
Quoting candlegal:
It is only biased if you are pro abortion
Quoting _Kissy_:
Lifenews? Thats not biased at all..dont like abortion, dont have one
I'll see your bias source with another bias source....
Texas GOP Takes Drastic Measures To Defund Planned Parenthood
First Posted: 6/28/11 04:49 PM ETÂ Updated: 6/28/11 04:59 PM ET
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/28/texas-gop-defund-planned-parenthood_n_886227.html
WASHINGTON -- In an attempt to defund Planned Parenthood without breaking any federal rules, Texas lawmakers passed two measures this month that will decimate the state's family planning program and result in nearly 300,000 women losing access to cancer and diabetes screenings.
In early June, Rick Perry, Texas' Republican governor, signed a budget bill that reduced the state's family planning funding from $111 million to just $37 million. Then on Monday, state lawmakers passed a measure that forces the Texas Health Department to dole out the remaining funds using a tiered priority system, in which Planned Parenthood is at the very bottom.
"It doesn't completely defund us, but it puts the agency in a position where they have to put us third in line for the money," said Yvonne Gutierrez, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood of South Texas. "And it's not only us that's in the third tier -- it's all the traditional family planning providers that don't provide comprehensive care, many in rural areas. So it's the hard to reach population that's really being affected by this."
Texas Planned Parenthood offices have two avenues through which they receive state and federal money: the Women's Health Program (WHP), which is funded by Medicaid, and the state family planning program, which is funded by the Title X federal grant program. In addition to putting private providers like Planned Parenthood last in line for Title X funds, GOP lawmakers inserted language into the new Medicaid bill that will prevent WHP money from going to any entity that provides abortions or is affiliated with an abortion provider.
Because Planned Parenthood corporately separated its abortion services from its family planning services in 2005, every abortion it performs in Texas is paid for privately by the patient. But the Health Department will now have to define the word "affiliate" to determine whether Planned Parenthood's abortion and family planning services are closely related enough to disqualify it from state Medicaid funding.
"Anti-choice lobbyists have spent the entire year confusing the facts," said Peter J. Durkin, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, in an email to HuffPost. "These groups pressured lawmakers to de-fund Planned Parenthood by muddling conversations about family planning programs with false accusations that they subsidize abortion care. There is absolutely no legitimacy to their claims – and they know it."
Nearly half of the 120,000 low-income Texas women who use the WHP for basic health care, birth control and cancer screenings do so through a Planned Parenthood clinic, so the Health and Human Services Commission's ruling could be a devastating blow to family planning.
"If they're gonna kick Planned Parenthood out of the program, then all of these women going to a Planned Parenthood clinic are gonna have to go to another provider -- and these providers are already operating at capacity," Gutierrez told HuffPost.
Further, if Texas breaks federal Medicaid rules by discriminating against Planned Parenthood, the state could risk nearly $150 million in federal family planning funds.
The state of Indiana recently faced a similar predicament, and a federal agency rejected its attempt to cut Medicaid funds from Planned Parenthood on the grounds that it takes away a patient's freedom to choose a qualified provider.
Gutierrez said the Texas chapter is "encouraged" by the ruling in Indiana and plans to launch a similar challenge in court.
But a spokesperson for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission said she believes the Texas version could stand. "Our attorney general believes that we have the right to limit how those tax dollars are spent," she said.
anyone who believes in abortion is pro abortion. They don't have to think every pregnancy should end in abortion.
Quoting celestegood:I don't get this phrase. I have never, ever met someone who thought every pregnancy should end in an abortion.
I have, however, met many who were pro choice, meaning you make your own medical decisions for your own body.
Quoting candlegal:
It is only biased if you are pro abortion
Quoting _Kissy_:
Lifenews? Thats not biased at all..dont like abortion, dont have one
It exists.....what is there to "believe in".
Quoting candlegal:
anyone who believes in abortion is pro abortion. They don't have to think every pregnancy should end in abortion.
Quoting celestegood:
I don't get this phrase. I have never, ever met someone who thought every pregnancy should end in an abortion.
I have, however, met many who were pro choice, meaning you make your own medical decisions for your own body.
Quoting candlegal:
It is only biased if you are pro abortion
Quoting _Kissy_:
Lifenews? Thats not biased at all..dont like abortion, dont have one
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