Women struggling with cuts to clinics

Funding changes bring hard times to W. Texas family planning services

BORGER - Through her divorce and the struggles of raising three girls on her salary at the Sonic Drive-In, there was one thing in Tanya Wilson's life that came easy.

Every three months, Wilson drove to the Planned Parenthood in her Panhandle hometown to get a birth control shot for free, most times with little or no wait. It was a great relief for a 34-year-old woman who didn't want any more children but lacked money for a tubal ligation.

Suddenly in January, her relief turned to stress. Wilson was among hundreds of patients across 17 counties who learned that the clinic they relied on for birth control, annual exams, Pap tests, breast cancer screenings, sexually transmitted disease tests and other services was closing because of funding cuts triggered by two little-known provisions tucked into the state's budget last session.

She's been pleading with the town's only remaining family planning clinic, which has been picking up other patients, to see her. She's one of many who hasn't had a Pap test in the past year because it would require driving an hour to the Amarillo Planned Parenthood.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/3748639.html

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This is a long article, but a must-read. The Repukes who added these funding riders in the bills admitted their goal was to close down Planned Parenthood because they provide abortions. Instead, they closed down several health clinics that DON'T provide abortions, INCLUDING an ABSTINENCE program.

Poor, second-class, and helpless.

The NeoCon America.

There is no other reason except hate - WTF have these struggling women done 2 piss off these angry white men? This is a pattern developing and rolling across the country. Planned Parenthood, from its inception, has always considered the health of the woman first. Their practices, clinics and actions have re-enforced this over the years.

And it's going to keep getting worse in all areas of womens' health.

I'm originally from the area, so I can comment. I used PP services when I was in college and the first two years out because I couldn't afford examinations since I had no money for health care.

First, I do think it stinks to high cotton that PP funding was cut, and I feel some sympathy for this woman. But I had a crummy car too, and still was able to drive an hour back and forth (albeit, no kids).

However, I don't understand the problem of why the boyfriend cannot drive her to a clinic an hour away if she needs a pap and a shot. She's smart to abstain, but I don't see any responsibility on his part.

She works at SONIC, for god's sakes, and has three kids already. I doubt her boyfriend is some high-priced attorney. He's probably working at some minimum wage job as well. Not every couple has two cars.

I do that. The three hours required (there, back, and waiting for you shot) would be literally impossible for me to find, and I have a car that runs, AND a husband who babysits when he's not at the university teaching.

There's a tremendous difference in time availability between being a college student and being a working mom. I don't fault the poster for not realizing that, however.

To tweak a bit,

* Most families in W. Texas do have two cars because there is not any good public transportation; perhaps the boyfriend is unemployed and that is a problem
* There is a big difference between working single women and working moms and I am empathetic
* I was a working person for two years in W. Texas there who had to drive an hour to and from the nearest PP clinic myself; and my boss questioned me once for taking off work early to go get an exam/meds, even though I had no health insurance. I worked in a very conservative town like hers, and my job's town was only 1,000 folks. Single women weren't allowed to discuss sexual health or birth control at all because otherwise it implied we were sexually active (and I was for part of those 2 years); taboo in a small town
* It is the journalist's fault for not discussing the boyfriend's role, but I feel strongly about shared responsibility, which is one of the issues I'm raising here
* It still sucks that the poverty stricken, who often need the services, are left to their own healthcare options--not many. She probably doesn't qualify for Medicaid either, but even if she did, birth control is not covered in most plans, which is inane to make meds gender based.


Overall, I'm hoping this HC article will elevate the issue to restore funding. Texans don't pay income taxes, so it's no wonder they cut the funding, and the belief system is that every person pulls her/his own bootstrap up.

Universal care or single payer care is needed to override these fools in state legislatures so that everyone gets decent care.

These should be basic services readily available to all women in all communities. Simply because there's another clinic somewhere in the state to which one could hypothetically commute doesn't make shutting down basic services everywhere else excusable.

I work at a public health dept and last year, it was announced by our administrator that we had been lumped in with abortion clinics and funds would be cut throughout Missouri for basic womens health checkups at public health clinics. (BTW-this was sliding scale fee, not free) This effected 28-30,000 Missouri women.

The wave continues and will only get worse.

They did it because the right-wing politicians get funded by "right-to-life" organizations who want the funding cut.

I expect it works the same way where you are.

don't know what I would have done without a sliding fee option.

We were able to keep funding for the program and others like it in Minnesota thanks to our Dem controlled senate. It was a hard fight. Now the Repukes are exacting their vengence (swift-bboat style) on the senate majority leader.

I'm really starting to hate all Republicans.

"The rider sponsored by Williams, of The Woodlands, earmarked $5 million of the state's family planning funds over the next two years for crisis pregnancy centers. The centers counsel pregnant women about options other than abortion but don't provide family planning or health services.

The health department estimates about 15,000 women will lose access to family planning because of Williams' rider."

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""I don't think, in my own mind, that there's any question this is a disaster for women's health," said Stephen Heartwell, professor and director of the division of community women's health care at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, a major family planning provider since 1969.

"Our program is, in effect, being shut down totally," Heartwell said. "No one asked what the impact would be on existing providers. No one from their staff, no one from the health department, those decisions were made in a vacuum as far as I can tell. The answers were out there for the asking.""

That has now become right wing standard operating procedure at all levels of governement- and not just in Red states. We saw it here in Oregon when our legislature's "Emergency Board" simply picked and chose dramtic cuts from areas of the Oregon health Plan that they didn't like. They simply ignored whatever input public health community and health economists had to offer.

I expect to see a LOT more of this over the next several years.

I haven't been to church in over a decade after entering the status of single mom.

doesn't care about preventing abortions nearly as much as they want to have total and absolute control over women. If they really want to prevent abortion, as they claim, they would make it easier for women to avoid unwanted pregnancies. IMO, the cuts in funding described in this article will not only increase the number of women seeking abortion, it will also have a negative impact on the children these women already have. A woman dealing with an unwanted pregnancy is more likely to be dealing with depression and reduced economic circumstances which will directly affect the health and welfare of the children they are already trying to raise.

Another negative effect will result from the women who depend on these clinics for health matters other than birth control. How many will die of cervical cancer because they are unable to get a pap smear? What other screening services directly related to women's health issues will be suspended by the cuts in funding?

This is NOT a pro-life agenda. It is very strongly anti-woman and they can't pull their heads out of their asses long enough to see the harm that they are doing on the pretense of protecting life.

is earmarked for the local Planned Parenthoods.

It doesn't even surprise me to hear of articles like this anymore - the American Taliban is obviously anti-women.

compassionate conservatism in action

Also took care of urinary tract infections, oral contraceptives and installed my IUD

so, they want to force women to have unwanted children but won't help them when they can't afford the healthcare needed to ensure that they remain healthy during and after their pregnancy. :mad:

The poorer and more pregnant they are, the more they have to rely on men.

These repukes couldn't find women otherwise.

These same women will be blamed as welfare moms and for our flailing economy, again.

"Screw 'em once the fetus is born!"

This woman can't get basic care now - this mother of three. What happens to those three children if Mom gets ill because she doesn't get basic health care? What happens to them if Mom dies from a pregnancy?

Do the forced birthers care? Oh hell no. Once the fetus passes through the vaginal canal, they completely lose interest in its future welfare.

But men on Medicare and Medicaid can get Viagra and related meds like they're candy.

Isn't our Rethug run country beautiful? :sarcasm:

but that's just on days when I'm feeling generous

other days I'd settle for a swift, albeit intensely painful, death for those who promote and embrace the control of women.

but that's just me