Richard Nixon may not be the first name most people associate with women's health and reproductive rights. But as House Republicans ramp up their unprecedented assault on women this week, I'm starting to think of the Nixon era as an age of enlightenment. The Title X Family Planning -program, which Nixon signed into law in 1970, is one of this country's great achievements in public health and social justice. Clinics funded through Title X now prevent nearly a million unintended pregnancies every year. They save women's lives through cancer screening, immunization and blood-pressure testing. Publicly supported family planning even saves the government money -- $3.74 for every dollar invested.
To the extremists now running the House of Representatives, this is somehow bad news. The Republican majority's FY 2011 continuing resolution to fund the federal government, released this week by the appropriations committee, would end all federal support for the Title X program. The continuing resolution is the latest in a series of Republican assaults on women's rights and health. Reps. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Joseph Pitts (R-PA), and Mike Pence (R-IN) are all pushing bills that shred basic health care in their zeal to restrict access to women's health, including abortion. The Pence bill would gut the Title X program by defunding any health center that provides abortion services -- even though Title X has never paid for a single abortion. Pence has mounted a heartless, even vicious, assault on the millions of women who rely on Title X clinics for primary health care. Yet the appropriations bill is even harsher. It would simply kill the whole program..
Title X's bedrock role in women's health care is due in large part to Planned Parenthood -- the sole provider of Title X services in some states. Our health centers provide family planning care to more than a third of the five million women served by Title X, and our services play a critical role in reducing unintended pregnancies, decreasing infant mortality, and detecting cancer at early stages, when there is a better chance of treating effectively. Altogether, Planned Parenthood's 800-plus health centers provided care to about three million patients in 2009. The services they delivered include not only family planning and contraception but also breast and pelvic exams, cervical cancer screening, testing for sexually transmitted infections, post-partum care, and community initiatives to help teens stay healthy.
These aren't niche services that supplement to people's regular health care. More than six out every ten women who receive care in a Title X family-planning health center say it's their main source of health care --not a supplement, but a lifeline. That's because 85 percent of them live at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level, and two thirds lack health insurance. What do the House Republicans have in mind for these women and families? Gail Collins distilled their attitude beautifully in a recent New York Times column: "Let Them Use Leeches."
My question (one that Nixon might ask) is: What are you guys thinking? For a modest $327 million a year, the Title X program improves health, saves lives, empowers women, and combats poverty and saves the government nearly four times what it costs. Title X funding has already shrunk by 62 percent since 1980, even though the population has grown and the cost of labor and supplies has risen. And now you want to kill it. If healing the economy is your key objective, how exactly does destroying this program advance it? Five million women need to know, and so do the voters who sent you to Washington to get the economy back on track. A recent Hart Research poll showed that that 71 percent of all voters, including 60 percent of those who voted for a Republican candidate for Congress in 2010, opposed Pence's effort to exclude full-service clinics from Title X. The push to defund the program is a blunt attack on women -- and a betrayal of the public trust.
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Bob Burnett: Republicans Renew War on Women
According to the US Department of Health, and I quote:
"By law, Title X funds may not be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning."
http://www.hhs.gov/opa/familyplanning/index.html
Show that PP charges less than any other abortion service provider within a 50 mile radius of each location. That is the only way that you can support your argument. Otherwise, it is all hot air.
We fought through these issues long ago - have the women of today become so complacent they have forgotten how to fight back? No fight, no freedom of choice....why are you letting these "Ps' " dictate?
This just in: New, guaranteed effective form of birth control, the scent of ANTI-MEN.
{Devils advocate above. While I don't personally think large families are responsible I would never chose to limit a families right to have children, as I would not like my right to limit the size of my families infringed upon.}
"By law, Title X funds may not be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning."
http://www.hhs.gov/opa/familyplanning/index.html
Title X allows me access to affordable pap smears and other services.
Insurance is too expensive on my salary to afford.
Therefore, I would be able to have access to affordable services through Title X.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/10/markets/dollar/index.htm
And rating agencies are threatening to downgrade US sovereign debt.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/249350-moody-s-says-probability-of-negative-outlook-for-u-s-rating-in-next-two-years-has-risen
Every single economist says the current US budget deficits are UNSUSTAINABLE.
Things have to be cut. A LOT of things. Look at President Obama - suggesting cuts to the funds to help the poor pay for heating oil.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-10/obama-said-to-call-for-cuts-in-heating-oil-aid-update1-.html
This is not something imaginary. It is an existential threat to the US.
If we are going to spare social security, Medicare, and other higher priority items, things like federal aid to Planned Parenthood needs to be cut.
It's as simple as that.
Since Medicare basically covers people over 65, I'm rather amazed that you found 220 of them pregnant at all.....
3raw, if the fed money is so important for women's health other than abortion, then why give fed money to an abortion clinic?
and link your stats and source to the '220'.
A judge up for appointment was questioned re abortion, asked when he thought life began.
He replied "life begins when the kids grow up and the dog dies".
As to clinics saying they don't use their Fed funds for abortions: that's ridiculous. All revenues fund the organization and it's activities, there is no way to track or separate revenues. Not in a corporation or a non-profit.
Women have a right to an abortion, not a free one. That right is not being abridged in any way. Stop "crying wolf" on this or people will ignore you, and get eaten when the wolf actually does arrive.
I will assume that you meant “costs†and not “revenues†in your statement. For revenues, simply look at the amount written on the check from the Feds.
I'm with the original poster. I'm sick of the "if they are against funding it, they are going to overturn Roe/Casey and destroy the right to an abortion" - no they aren't. I'm unclear what abortion should be a carve out amongst all other rights, one where the government should pay to allow you to get an abortion.
There are generally accepted legal standards too. Like having your employees report statutory rape. If Planned Parenthood doesn't follow THOSE standards (and that's well documented) why would anyone think they'd be averse to fudging a few entries on a balance sheet?