Women's Clinics Retreat as Finances Are Cut
SAN CARLOS, Texas — Leticia Parra, a mother of five scraping by on income from her husband’s sporadic construction jobs, relied on the Planned Parenthood clinic in this impoverished South Texas town for breast cancer screenings, free birth control pills and pap smears for cervical cancer.
But the clinic closed in October, along with more than a dozen others, after financing for women’s health was slashed by two-thirds by the Republican-controlled Legislature.
The cuts, leaving many low-income women with inconvenient or costly options, stemmed from an effort to eliminate state support for Planned Parenthood. Although no clinic driven out ...
Comments (47)
Luisa Inez Newton via Texas Tribune on Facebook
as usual, pompous Texas politicians want to control women's bodies and force their views on abortion onto women. Never gonna work, guys
Lize Burr via Texas Tribune on Facebook
You know, I kind of blend being anti-stupidity with being anti-Republican
Joe Estep via Texas Tribune on Facebook
No, Luisa they just want to quit funding them. Everyone is still free to do as they wish, just not on the tax payers' dime.
Larel Bender
Thank you for a very informative article.
Just a note, you write that a woman may have "surgical cancer"?
Luisa Inez Newton via Texas Tribune on Facebook
By your logic, then, no one should pay for any services to men for which they disapprove, Joe. Like, why should my tax dollars pay for Mr. Christian's Viagra, prostate surgeries or high blood pressure meds, since I have a moral objection to unfair treatment in health care
Tom Sweazea via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The first three words of his statement is absolutely 100% correct; He doesn't think.
Erica Bozovich Hart via Texas Tribune on Facebook
So are they going to offer free or low cost birth control somewhere else to help prevent unplanned pregnancies? The easiest way to lower the number of abortions is to lower then number of unplanned/unwanted pregnancies. It's really not rocket science.
Luisa Inez Newton via Texas Tribune on Facebook
No more prostate exams for men because they might get an erection while being examined?
Renee E. Babcock via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Joe abortions were not being paid for from public funds. All these idiots have done is take away money used to provide actual health care for low income women, probably guaranteeing the need for more abortions while they're at it. A bunch of mainly white, mainly male, politicians pretending they care about women, when their actions show the lie behind their words.
Luisa Inez Newton via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Abortion is, simply, part of women's health care between her and her doctor.
Tedi Elliott via Texas Tribune on Facebook
No, Joe. It's more than that. It's republicans trying to enshrine their religious beliefs into law.
Allison Barker Davis via Texas Tribune on Facebook
"Surgical cancer"??
Emily Ramshaw
Should be "cervical." Fixed. Thanks, Larel.
Taylor J. Harris via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Liberal circle jerk.
Luisa Inez Newton via Texas Tribune on Facebook
the real circle jerk is GOP politicians around the country acting as totalitarians regarding women's health!
Joe Estep via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Renee, it doesn't matter which pocket it comes out of, now does it? It's the same pair of pants.
Renee E. Babcock via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Taylor if all you can do us attack us instead of our ideas you don't have much.
train
Republican women need to step up to the plate on this issue. Think about it. Among the services that will no longer be provided is pre-natal care. What happens to the babies? Isn't this what it's all about in the first place? Healthy babies?
Pun Nio via Texas Tribune on Facebook
It is lawful, you don 't like a law that provides women a choice, so you block that law. Don't think that's what "lawmakers" are suppose to do.
Renee E. Babcock via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Joe, really, you want to compare accounting procedures to as pair of pants?
Lori Propper Parker via Texas Tribune on Facebook
And ironically, Joe, the lack of funding does not shut down the PP abortion clinics. Only 14 PP locations out of 69 in the state of Texas perform abortions. They remain open, because they are PRIVATELY funded. And now they will just get busier......
Jon Thompson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Wow, there's just not too many issues that brings out the bears like abortion.
Alan Hurwitz via Texas Tribune on Facebook
As a Texas physician, I find Rep. Chrisitan's comments to be not only inaccurate but also reprehensible. Thousands of Texas women depend on PP for their basic medical care, mammograms, screenings for cervical cancer, and screenings for diabetes and hypertension. If he's not against providing health care for women, then why are the Republicans in Texas waging war on women's health by cutting off much-needed funding?
tom brown
In order to be a good religious fundamentalist ideologue/bigot a person has to adopt a no-exceptions, no compromises attitude, even if it means shooting yourself and others in the foot to maintain yr principles. It's a lot easier to believe and support simple black & white ideas - removes the need for thinking. It is perfectly natural and normal for rep ideologues to operate this way and worse if necessary to promote and impose their extreme values on others. If you like what's going on in TX, you'll love a republican-controlled federal gvt (congress, white house, & judicial). You ain't seen nothin' yet.
BiffTannen
train, they don't care once you leave the womb. Then you're on your own.
Pamela McPeters via Texas Tribune on Facebook
When asked whether Texas’s anti-family planning efforts were “a war on birth control,” Christian replied, “Well of course this is a war on birth control and abortions and everything”:
Jalapeno Schwartz via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Facts never we a priority in Center to begin with
Karen Spivey-Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I certainly hope Texas women are finally waking up!
Sam Davis via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Vote and drag everyone you know to the polls. If voter ID/suppression is upheld it will make it harder for us to turn out all the legal voters but these people must be stopped. Do you really want state leaders who reflect the attitudes expressed by trolls like Joe and Taylor? Misogyny isn't a virtue.
Cathy Criss via Texas Tribune on Facebook
If Wayne Christian's mother had practiced birth control, we would all be better off.
Vicki Rawlins McCuistion via Texas Tribune on Facebook
throwing the baby out with the bathwater...
Nancy Swartz
Excellent article. The impact of the closure of clinics in small towns and rural areas needs to be documented as you have.
David Spratt
Apparently Leticia Parra is selling her free birth control pills , or the free ones do not work as she has 5 children. I would bet any amount of money she also receives food stamps, relies on medicaid and every other free program associated with the raising of her 5 children. I would also bet if a picture accompanied the story , the whole family would be fat and happy , not the picture of starving impoverished humans one day away from death.
There used to be a saying that nothing is free in life. What has happened over the years to change the mental processes of Americans to believe that everything should be free in life, and if it is not, then somehow someone is not being fair? Obviously since some , me being one of them, object to working our butts off providing and paying for all these " Free" programs , we hate women, minorities, poor people, or just freeloaders in general. If you choose to live in an " Impoverished South Texas Town" why should the rest of the people that live in un-impoverished locations be forced to supplement your existence? Better yet why should we supplement people living in un-impoverished areas?
For many this is not about womens health, contraception, abortion. I personally do not care what other people choose to do , it may not conform to my beliefs , but do not expect me to contribute to paying for it. Have all the abortions you want , take all the pills you want, ( Maybe Leticia should double her dose), just do it on your own dime. Everytime I hear about "free services" , no matter what they are , I am reminded of what I was taught when young, There is no such thing.
Carrie L. Stewart via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I've lost my patience with angry middle-aged white men taking out their fear of losing power out on *everyone* else!!!
Kathy Kennemer Genet via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Vote.
Lize Burr via Texas Tribune on Facebook
And get your friends who hate politics because of how ridiculous/punitive/fill-in-the-blank to vote too.
Lize Burr via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The problem in Texas is all the people who don't vote. We are 49th in percentage of women who vote. Think about that.
Bonnie McGuire
Ghandi said the measure of a civilization is how it treats its weakest members. I guess that makes our measure around negative 10 if we're using the survival of the fittest reasoning of some people.
Cheryl Roberts via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Why does Texas hate women?
Christine Garrison via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Vote vote vote!
Kimberly Maudine via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Opposing misogyny=liberal circle jerk? That's the language of the oppressor, and it doesn't fly with this independent voter. Get your religion/politics out of my uterus!!
Cynthia Tannehill Faulk Ryland via Texas Tribune on Facebook
97% of Pl. Pa. activities are health care/screenings/education for women & their families. These people don't like having to care for poor families who have kids. They should know that getting preg. & having babies is the wrong thing to do if you don't have money to feed/care for/house yourself & kid(s). But we won't help you NOT have kids. Idiots...
Edith Beumer Kemp via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The Republican's refusal to acknowledge, let alone debate the effect this will have on hundreds of thousands of women and their families boggles my mind. The Politics of Nyah-Nyah.
Marcus Cunningham via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Also, can we take away the GOP talking point of "we can't afford it?" Not only are they refusing millions of fed dollars, they are going to raise the costs of healthcare for everyone. There is no cost savings. Only rhetoric and ideology.
Anya Khan
The federal government and the Obama Administration care far more about pp than they do about Texas women.
merridee adams
This is what y'all get to call a death sentence ... and these women who will die have committed no crimes.
patricia bird
Let’s compromise - no more medical procedures devoted to a man’s little john henry. Now, you are required to pay for a DNA test, tattoo the profile on your arm so we can locate you if you danced with an unknown female after closing time, and she wishes to give you a 9-month gift. Can’t afford the kid, you will go to a pregnancy aversion camp. Viagra-off the table. That little blue pill appears to artificially activate your little john henry, and we will not have any of that. If your proud bird cannot wave firmly in the sky on its own, then you are too old for pleasure or to infirmed to enjoy it;
Vasectomies - nope. You will protect the little swimmers at all cost. Let a few of them lose while not in the vicinity of a female you wish to impregnate, jail time. You feel sex for pleasure should not be rewarded, so unless you plan to impregnate, condoms are outlawed. We applaud Republican. Not only is the female egg scared, we feel your little swimmers are sacred as well. No more late night single dates, men. if you happen to be on your own and tossing the swimmers, manslaughter.
Women will advise congress if you got a thumbs up or thumbs or if you qualify for a pill, latex or an unknown female. Until then, hands where we can see them.