Even after Planned Parenthood stopped performing abortions, Texas is still trying to shut it down
Even after Planned Parenthood stopped performing abortions, Texas is still trying to shut it down
Planned Parenthood has managed to stay open in Texas despite the state’s best efforts to shut it down. But a lawsuit in front of a conservative judge poses an existential threat.
Because it was never about abortion; it's always been about controlling women and weakening their position in society.
I came here to comment this. I'm glad this was at the top when ranked "hot" for me. Every time I see a headline like this I die a little inside, I'm so sick of this naive attitude in general society when dealing with theocrats.
it was never about the abortions.
as always, the cruelty was the point.
It was always about fascism. Always has been, always will be.
Well yeah, they hate the idea of planned parenthood. The desirables of society are supposed to be married expressly for the purpose of bearing children, and anyone else is supposed to have it thrust upon them whether they're ready, want it or not.
Also they don't want the poor to be able to have healthcare of any kind. Because that's socialism donchaknow.
It's the name. PP and abortions are tied together in the minds of conservative voters, whether or not that particular branch provides abortion services. Texas legislature wants to burn down PP at all costs.
But then, Texas did something no other state had tried yet: It walked away from about $30 million in annual federal funds rather than allow Planned Parenthood to continue to provide contraception to low-income women. In 2013, Texas launched its own women’s health program, relying entirely on state dollars.
Texas’ reproductive health care landscape never recovered from this tornado, even when the state tried to make up the lost funding in future sessions.
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The Obama administration told Texas it couldn’t exclude a qualified health care provider from the program; the courts agreed, as they did in every case concerning a state’s effort to cut Planned Parenthood out of federal funds.
“Because they had decimated a network that had taken decades to build, if they wanted to actually effectively fix that problem, they would have had to devote even more resources in a dedicated way,” said Amanda Stevenson, a sociologist at the University of Colorado who studied these changes.
The impetus was videos secretly recorded by anti-abortion activists that claimed to show Planned Parenthood employees in California discussing the illegal sale of fetal remains.
The same activists also visited a Planned Parenthood in Houston, and Attorney General Ken Paxton said at the time he had obtained “hours of recordings” detailing how the clinic handled fetal remains.
With several rounds of funding and program cuts under their belt, the providers at Planned Parenthood knew there wasn’t a robust system of medical practices that accepted Medicaid waiting to catch these new patients.
Disclosure: Planned Parenthood has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors.
Good bot
They could always just rebrand themselves, "Women for American Freedom" or something?
(Sorry I realize this is pretty serious - does Texas even have the ability to shut down a federally funded agency like this?)