Texas court rules funds can be cut from Planned Parenthood

While we were Akin-izing (agonizing over Akin), the war on women’s access to basic health care was not asleep. A scary day in Texas, when an appellate court ruled yesterday that the state can strip Planned Parenthood of all funding as they find ways to “protect life” and remove all state funding from groups that provide abortion. The problem is, by taking Planned Parenthood out of the Women’s Health Program, they are mostly stripping funding for cancer screenings, birth control and other gynecological screenings. An estimated 130,000 poor women in Texas could lose access to affordable health care.

Rick Perry, your people are sick.

via Reuters.

Texas is the most populous of a number of states with Republican majorities that have mounted a campaign to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood. A group of Planned Parenthood clinics earlier this year filed a federal lawsuit to stop Texas from cutting off the funding.

The ruling on Tuesday reversed a lower court decision that had temporarily allowed Planned Parenthood to continue receiving funding from the Texas program.

After the appeals court decision was announced, Texas said it would immediately stop providing money to Planned Parenthood under the Women’s Health Program, which provides services to poor women.

“We appreciate the court’s ruling and will move to enforce state law banning abortion providers and affiliates from the Women’s Health Program as quickly as possible,” Texas Health and Human Services Commission spokeswoman Stephanie Goodman said.

The depths and lengths anti-choicers will go in the name of “life” has reached absurd proportions. The state government has no right to strip access to basic health care in the name of religious dogma. Not only is it not in the best interest of your constituents, it could lead to a public health crisis and leave many of your poorest members with almost no options for affordable health care. Not that this is surprising to us, since the Republican motto right now is, “fuck you, work harder you poor piece of shit” and “sluts, you should be forced to have a baby.”