Pennsylvania Lawmakers Attempting To Defund Planned Parenthood
If Pennsylvania State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R-Butler) has his way Planned Parenthood will lose state funding in the near future.
Metcalfe will introduce the Whole Woman’s Health Funding Priority Act on Wednesday, a bill that would place abortion providing health care providers at the end of the priority list for state funding. The bill was co-written by anti-abortion activist group Susan B. Anthony List and the Alliance Defense Fund.
While Planned Parenthood does receive private donations a large portion of its funding comes from state and federal funding channels including Medicaid and Titles V, X and XX. The agency has long argued that those funds are used for breast cancer screenings, STD testing and treatment, pap smears, maternity care and other medical services for low-income and uninsured patients. Planned Parenthood then uses private donations to pay for abortions which make up less than 3 percent of the agencies services.
Opponents of Planned Parenthood argue that the bill will push much needed money into “upgrades” for women’s health services at hospitals and other family planning clinics, however there is no arguing that hospitals simply do not offer the low-income services Planned Parenthood users require.
As the HuffingtonPost points out:
“The problem with cutting funding from a major nationwide family-planning provider is that many Planned Parenthood patients live in low-income, rural and medically underserved areas where there generally aren’t other viable providers of the same types of services. For instance, Tennessee lawmakers cut Title X funding from Planned Parenthood in 2011, and that law has left many former patients unable to afford health care.”
It’s likely that the bill will pass as Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives is made up mostly of Republicans. You might recall that during a debate over a mandatory ultrasound bill that would require all women to receive one ultrasound before having an abortion Senate Go. Tom Corbett (R) told women who didn’t want to see the results to just “close their eyes.”
Pennsylvania is not the first state to attempt a defunding bill against Planned Parenthood, legislation was enacted for the same reason in 2011 in six states that include: Wisconsin, Indiana, Kansas, North Carolina, Texas and Tennessee. All of those states except Wisconsin have since been told by judges that the defunding of the agency is unconstitutional and those bills have all been temporarily blocked. The only state to successfuly strip funds to date is Arizona.
