Report: Family Planning Cuts Caused 53 Clinics to Close
More than 50 clinics that provide family planning services have closed as a result of state budget cuts, according to a report published Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine.
“We are witnessing the dismantling of a safety net that took decades to build and could not easily be recreated even if funding were restored soon,” states the report, which was produced by sociologists at the Population Research Center at the University of Texas in Austin as part of a three-year study of the impact of budget cuts to family planning services in Texas.
State lawmakers cut funding for ...
Comments (27)
Karen Spivey-Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Rick Perry and the GOP have to go.
Benjamin Collins via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Huh. Seems to me that the "safety net" of abortion isn't much of a safety net for babies, Planned Parenthood's murder victims. The reporting conveniently leaves out any mention of how many clinics not offering abortion-related services were affected, instead whitewashing with the very ambiguous term "family-planning clinics".
Larissa Lindsay via Texas Tribune on Facebook
While Houston has a 100% increase in syphilis cases, with fewer places for people to get STD screening. But hey Rick, you say there are more than enough places to get care other than a Planned Parenthood. (Can still get at PP now, but for how long?)
Peter Cox via Texas Tribune on Facebook
“That government is best which governs least…”—Henry David Thoreau
Dave Mundy via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Once again comrades at the Tribune, it is excellent job you haf done to turn attention away from fiscal and moral prudence and instead focus anger of under-educated common citizen that government should be responsible for caring for them! You are true heroes of socialism!
Harmony Edwards via Texas Tribune on Facebook
This has nothing at all to do with fiscal prudence. This is the conservative right shoving their so called "values" down the throats of others.
By the way there are plenty of very well educated citizens who are uninsured or underinsured who utilized these clinics for basic well woman and preventative care.
Kelley Masters via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Seriously. I tried to get them interested in a really positive bill we got passed last session which is creating thousands of jobs, but this kind of stuff is all they're interested in. Government gooooood. Republicans baaaaaaad.
Jonathan Osmundsen via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Is it me, or do a great number of people in the TEA Party have issues with spelling, punctuation and grammar? And then there's history....
cal morton
...from the comments below, it appears mean are not able to read.
Denise Allen Mitchell via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Texas....what an awesome place for women and children. :/
Denise Allen Mitchell via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Why are men so vocal when it comes to women's issues. Those who are opposed to choice and women's rights? Controlling...just a little?
Becca Aaronson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Benjamin Collins, the term "family planning clinics" is used in the report by the researchers to indicate clinics that are not public or do not provide comprehensive primary care. None of the clinics (family planning or otherwise) that have received state funding provide abortions. Republicans have argued that because some family planning clinics, such as Planned Parenthood, are affiliated with clinics that do provide abortions that cost-shifting could occur, but there is no proof or evidence that has ever occurred. For more information on both sides of this political disagreement, check out my liveblog of the Tribune Festival's family planning debate: http://www.texastribune.org/texas-state-agencies/health-and-human-services-commission/liveblog-health-human-services-texas-tribune-festi/
Lori Trammell via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The costs of the growing numbers of people feeling they are entitled to be dependent on the state is not only growing. It is destroying our culture and sapping those folks of any inkling of incentive to make it on their own.
Beth Meyer via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Very good summary, Becca Aaronson, but t-partiers are not swayed by facts.
Mac Mcclure via Texas Tribune on Facebook
J Osmundsen is a typical liberal. He can't argue with facts so he chooses to demean those who know the facts. Remember Jonathan your number one hero Obama thought there the United States has 57 states. Look it up in your history book.
Sam Davis via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Once again the same people are confusing family planning with abortion. It seems like many GOPs are willfully ignorant on the matter. The closing of many of these clinics will hurt the poor. Of course there are the snooty TEA Partiers (Lori?) who have theirs and want to make sure no one else gets health care or any benefits.
Mary Muna via Texas Tribune on Facebook
oh well, I guess they will go back to Mexico for abortions.
Rudy Gonzales
This is what happens when the TEA-Republican's control everything and the "Streaking Texas Turkey" got that "Deer in the head lights look" when he "Crashed and burned" on the national scene. Hey Texas! Have you any idea how freaky your bean-brained Governor looks wiping away years of humanization with the stroke of his religious pen? You guys need to change that career politician. he just like babies diapers. He needs changing for the same reason!
Lori Trammell via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Sam: Lori is not a tea partier...whatever. Just someone who used to buy into that "helpful" government control.
Heather Person via Texas Tribune on Facebook
welcome to the third world. we're on the *righteous* fast track.
Glenda Turck via Texas Tribune on Facebook
We lost Jesus on the way to being the shining city on the hill.
Dale Curry
This has little to do with budgets and much more to do with the GOP War on Women. Keep on republicans, each time you take away benefits from families and women, you hasten the day this state turns solidly blue.
John Carhart via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Thank you GOP folks for your brilliance and wisdom! What happened to the George and Barbara Bush who once supported Planned Parenthood?
Well Read29
Texans capable of paying more taxes will never agree to do so as long as the Federal Government refuses to do its job and close the borders. They will continue to de-fund the state and federal governments through whatever influence they have until the Fed and State Grow Up and start treating their money with respect.
Today's policies in place, especially on immigration, are simply unsupportable. A government that refused to do the right thing and follow its own laws should not be funded, period.
No money, no family planning, no other benefits for the poor.
Grow Up BHO et. al.
WR29
Lori Trammell via Texas Tribune on Facebook
We all make mistakes...and PP wasn't exactly transparent about some things...
Jennifer Potter-Miller
At the Tribune Festival, Dr. Kimberly Carter said “It’s bone-chilling to hear you equate abortion with family planning,” Carter said to Pojman. “As a physician, the terminology is completely separate. Contraception you would use prior to conception. To confuse the two is being woefully ignorant.” Family planning is the #1 reason women around the world have gained an education, a job, and a political voice in the last 60 years. Easy access to free or low-cost contraception can change the world, and is worth every penny.
Tiffany Sparks
Talk about fiscal responsibility until your face turns blue. The fact is that tax payers can pay up front for birth control or they can pay twice as much after the baby is born. And then those babies start having babies and we can quadruple the tax burden.
Sometimes you make have to make decisions NOT based on your desire to shove your religious beliefs down everyone else's throats and base it on what is good for society.