After a month of negotiating the state’s two-year budget, the Texas Legislature’s new proposal cuts Planned Parenthood from its Breast and Cervical Cancer Services program.
The decision by the Lone Star State would axe funding for over a dozen Planned Parenthood facilities that don’t provide abortions on-site. Planned Parenthood received $1.2 million in taxpayer dollars under the program last year. A finalized budget will be decided on before June 1.
Alex Garcia-Ditta, writing for Texas Observer, gives background on the new budget proposal:
In January, key budget writers state Sen. Jane Nelson (R-Flower Mound) and state Sen. Charles Schwertner (R-Georgetown) acknowledged that they want to keep state money away from health care providers that also perform abortions.
The state sent a similar message in 2011 when abortion providers were cut off from state funding. Although the Obama administration threatened to cut off Medicaid funding for the state’s women’s health program, then-governor Rick Perry still committed his state to run and fully fund the program.
Unfortunately, Texan values, and, more importantly, the truth, are lost on Planned Parenthood— from its CEO to its supporters.
In favor of funding legitimate providers, as long as Planned Parenthood continues to provide abortions, that’s reason enough to bar it from the program.
While it is technically true that federal dollars are not supposed to go towards abortion, the amount of tax dollars Planned Parenthood receives, and an increase in abortion services, makes it clear where our tax dollars are going. While taxpayer funds cannot (legally) be used for abortion, such funds allow the organization to use monies for the procedure more easily.
Not only did Planned Parenthood increase abortion services, it has decreased “Cancer Screening and Prevention Services.” This information comes straight from Planned Parenthood’s 2012-13 and 2013-14 annual reports.
From an objective level, wouldn’t it make sense for such productivity levels to send that program to the bottom of the list, or off of it completely? It’s not just about saving money then, but sending a message that Texans do not want their money going towards abortion providers.
Many of us are familiar with the pink signs reading ,”Don’t take away my breast exams.” A “breast exam” at Planned Parenthood, however, is hardly any better than what you can do yourself at home. The pro-life movement has exposed the lies from Planned Parenthood CEO and President Cecile Richards, and others, who have claimed that the organization provides mammograms.
If Planned Parenthood really wants to be granted state funding, it should drop abortion, as this former affiliate did.
Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest abortion business, and it very much operates on an abortion-centric model. Let’s see Planned Parenthood for what it really is: a abortion business and not a champion for health care.
