Federal funding for Planned Parenthood is apparently a serious bone of contention in the budget slug-fest that threatens a government shutdown at midnight tonight. So it’s worth having a look at just what that federal funding does (and does not) do.
From Jodi Jacobson at RH Reality Check:
All (let me repeat this: ALL) of Planned Parenthood’s federal funding goes toward basic health care. Public funds account for roughly a third of Planned Parenthood’s $1 billion annual budget. These funds come from local, state and federal sources, but 90 percent come from Medicaid and other federal sources. Federal funds pay only for cancer screenings, birth control, family planning visits, annual exams, testing for HIV and other STIs, and other basic care.
Moreover, Planned Parenthood centers provide access to those who otherwise have NO other options. Seventy-three percent of Planned Parenthood health centers are in rural or medically underserved areas.
Planned Parenthood provides primary and preventive health care to many who otherwise would have nowhere to turn. According to the Guttmacher Institute, six in ten patients who receive care at a family planning health center like Planned Parenthood consider it their main source of health care. And for every dollar spent on this preventive care, we save four dollars in health costs averted by not preventing adverse outcomes. …What will happen if Planned Parenthood is defunded? It is very simple. More women will die of otherwise preventable or treatable breast and cervical cancers and potentially of complications of infections such as HIV; more women will have unintended pregnancies leading to more women seeking abortions; fewer women raped or experiencing gender-based violence in their homes at the hands of intimate partners will get health care or referrals to shelters (of which of course there will be few anyway because funds for those also are being cut). More women who rely on Planned Parenthood to identify conditions such as high blood pressure or diabetes will not get necessary referrals for treatment. More families will suffer.
You may recall that since 1976 the Hyde Amendment has barred the use of federal funds to pay for abortions.
Just so we’re clear about what’s at issue.
Nice rebuttal to “I don’t want my tax dollaz payings for killinz babbies” crowd. Good work.
Yeah but that same groups objects for paying the the electricity used when someone goes in for an abortion too, for example. No win situation too.
And, just in case someone thinks it’s just a women’s issue (probably not anyone reading this blog), PP provides plenty of health services to men too.
I call the extremist/activist part of this whole “pro life” thing “clean-hands moral dilettante-ism.” This latest congressional crap about Planned Parenthood just makes me want to spit nails.
See
http://bgladd.blogspot.com/2008/04/diploid-dave-et-al.html
for some of my $0.02 on the abortion topic.
Jacobson states: “but 90 percent come from Medicaid and other federal sources.” Sounds like federal money to me.