House votes to eliminate Title X family planning funding
_
Posts: 6,651
"Over the past 40 years, Title X family planning clinics have played a critical role in ensuring access to a broad range of family planning and related preventive health services for millions of low-income or uninsured individuals and others. In addition to contraceptive services and related counseling, Title X-supported clinics provide a number of related preventive health services such as: patient education and counseling; breast and pelvic examinations; breast and cervical cancer screening according to nationally recognized standards of care; sexually transmitted disease (STD) and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) prevention education, counseling, testing and referral; and pregnancy diagnosis and counseling. By law, Title X funds may not be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning."
http://www.hhs.gov/opa/familyplanning/index.html
"Title X–supported family planning centers served 4.7 million women in 2008. The contraceptive services provided at these centers helped women and couples avoid 973,000 unintended pregnancies, which would have resulted in 433,000 unplanned births and 406,000 abortions. Without these services, unintended pregnancy and abortion in the United States would be one-third higher. And by helping women avoid unintended pregnancies, Title X–supported family planning centers saved taxpayers $3.4 billion in 2008—or $3.74 for every $1 spent on contraceptive care"
http://www.guttmacher.org/media/inthene ... index.html
http://www.hhs.gov/opa/familyplanning/index.html
"Title X–supported family planning centers served 4.7 million women in 2008. The contraceptive services provided at these centers helped women and couples avoid 973,000 unintended pregnancies, which would have resulted in 433,000 unplanned births and 406,000 abortions. Without these services, unintended pregnancy and abortion in the United States would be one-third higher. And by helping women avoid unintended pregnancies, Title X–supported family planning centers saved taxpayers $3.4 billion in 2008—or $3.74 for every $1 spent on contraceptive care"
http://www.guttmacher.org/media/inthene ... index.html
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
oh well i guess being short sighted on women's health issues is the american way.
it strikes me as mildly ironic that those who are anti abortion are generally the ones pushing to defund this which directly leads to more abortions....
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
In regards to the article...............that's pretty ridiculous!!
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Welcome to the "pro-life" movement.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 07039.html
Ruth Marcus
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
House Republicans voted to increase the number of abortions, raise federal health-care costs and swell the welfare rolls.
That wasn't their intent, of course, and certainly not their stated policy. But it is the predictable and inevitable impact of their twin moves to eliminate funding for the federal family planning program and strip Planned Parenthood of all federal money.
If anything, this assessment is understated. The sharper, and still accurate version, would be that Republicans voted to let more women die from breast cancer, cervical cancer and AIDS. How's that? The family planning programs also provide cancer screening and HIV counseling to millions of low-income and uninsured people.
Let's be clear about one thing. Almost none of this money went for abortions. The only federal funding for abortion involves the thankfully low number of situations in which poor women seek abortions for pregnancy due to rape or incest, or when their own lives are in jeopardy. In 2006, the last year for which figures are available, the federal government paid for 191 such abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
However, the House cuts are intended to punish abortion providers - specifically, Planned Parenthood, which is simultaneously the largest recipient of federal family planning funds and the largest abortion provider in the country.
Federal law requires Planned Parenthood to carefully separate its abortion expenses from its others. In most instances, abortions are performed in a different building or on a different floor, by different staff. That is not enough to satisfy abortion opponents, who insist that the federal money frees up other funds to underwrite abortions.
But abortions represent 3 percent of the services Planned Parenthood provides; contraception accounts for 35 percent; testing for sexually transmitted diseases, 34 percent; cancer screening and prevention, 17 percent.
How does the federal money that flows to Planned Parenthood for those purposes differ from, say, Medicare funding that flows to hospitals that also perform abortions? Are those facilities next?
"If Planned Parenthood wants to be involved in providing counseling services and HIV testing, they ought not be in the business of providing abortions," Indiana Republican Mike Pence, who has led the defunding charge, told Politico. "As long as they aspire to do that, I'll be after them."
Last I checked, abortion was legal in this country.
But leave aside Planned Parenthood and turn to the larger question of the Title X family planning program. In introducing his Planned Parenthood defunding, Pence took care to make that distinction. "This legislation does not cut one penny from Title X family planning funding," he said. "I applaud much of the important work that is done at Title X clinics across this country: breast cancer screening, HIV protection, education, counseling, pregnancy diagnosis."
Applaud, perhaps, but not fund. A few weeks later, the House spending bill zeroed out all $317 million in Title X funding. An amendment by New York Democrat Nita Lowey to restore the funding did not receive a vote because Lowey did not come up with other cuts to pay for it.
This is crazy - as a matter of both abortion prevention and fiscal prudence.
The Title X program was signed into law in 1970 by Richard Nixon, who proclaimed that "no American woman should be denied access to family planning assistance because of her economic condition." Title X clinics serve more than 5 million women annually, the vast majority of them low-income.
The Guttmacher Institute has estimated that Title X helps prevent nearly 1 million unintended pregnancies annually. The institute says these pregnancies would otherwise result in 433,000 unintended births and 406,000 abortions.
The inevitable result of eliminating Title X funding would not only be more abortions - it would also be higher bills for taxpayers footing Medicaid and welfare costs for poor children. Guttmacher found that every public dollar invested in family planning care saves $3.74 in Medicaid expenditures for pregnant women and their babies during the first year of care. Imagine the lifetime savings.
And then there is the other "important work" that Pence cited: 2.2 million Pap smears, 2.3 million breast exams, nearly 6 million tests for sexually transmitted infections.
If Republicans really believe that this is not a wise use of government funds, they are crazier than I thought.
Why does it always have to be about blame with you? This is just about facts. The FACT is that increased abortions & increased expenses will certainly be the consequence of eliminating Title X funding. The people who voted for this say they did it because they oppose abortion and/or want to save the taxpayers money, but we know this will do exactly the opposite - so it just doesn't make any sense.
I do agree that it should not be cut... But I love this tactic of ignoring personal responsibility.
To be exact... Sorry for getting off subject, but the amount of money being derailed from other programs, like Title X and USIP, it seems all of it is funneled to military spending...
I will continue to be baffled by those people that are against abortions but also against sex education, etc. I'm certainly anti-abortion, but it can't happen overnight with just some sort of a ban or lack of funding. You need to develop a system that helps prevent unintended pregnancies. Not just wish that it didn't happen.
""Title X–supported family planning centers served 4.7 million women in 2008. The contraceptive services provided at these centers helped women and couples avoid 973,000 unintended pregnancies, which would have resulted in 433,000 unplanned births and 406,000 abortions. Without these services, unintended pregnancy and abortion in the United States would be one-third higher. And by helping women avoid unintended pregnancies, Title X–supported family planning centers saved taxpayers $3.4 billion in 2008—or $3.74 for every $1 spent on contraceptive care""
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Personal responsibility is just not relevant to the question at hand. I love this tactic of ignoring social responsibility.
Wow - I just read that the $3.74 saved for every $1 invested in Title X contraception is just for the FIRST YEAR of care for the half a million extra kids that would be born every year. Can you imagine how much that's going to cost over their entire childhoods? :shock:
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
"If we cut Planned Parenthood, the money saved could sustain the war for 3 hours 51mins. $75 million for 800 clinics a year = 4 hours of war."
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Many schools teach abstinence-only sex education. By federal law (at least under the Bush administration), all programs receiving any federal funds for this are BANNED from discussing contraception, except to just tell students that it doesn't work. This type of education not only leaves them unprepared to have safe sex, but even DISCOURAGES them from having safe sex because there's no reason to use contraception if it doesn't work.
In my city & state (which is more progressive than much of the country), the city public school system was recently challenged on its policy to not allow any contraception to be available at school-based health centers (which are the only health centers some young people are able to access). This was challenged based on a state law that says no organization (including school systems) may interfere in the doctor/patient relationship - specifically for minors seeking family planning services. The response from some members of the school board was to say that they will shut down all school-based health centers to avoid allowing condoms to be made available. One school board member even spoke out to the press saying condoms don't work. The response at the state level was that a bill has now been introduced in this legislative session forbidding any school-based health center in the entire STATE not only from providing access to contraception, but also from providing services like pregnancy tests & STD tests, and even from DISCUSSING any "reproductive health process or function". So now they want to prevent students' one consistent source of medical advice from even telling anyone how babies are made. (Or, as one doctor put it, he would even be banned from continuing to advise 14-year-olds to stop having unprotected anal intercourse.) All this in the state with the highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation.
Some schools do teach comprehensive sex ed. My friend is a sex educator for one of the only organizations that teaches students about contraception. She gets a day or two with each class, but says that's not nearly enough time to cover everything from birth control to STDs to date rape. But the two biggest problems are (1) her organization is only allowed to teach in less than half the schools in town, and (2) the kids don't pay attention. She says they don't pay attention, take it seriously, or ask questions either because they're not having sex so they don't think it pertains to them, or because they're embarrassed. Still, this is about the most comprehensive sex ed kids get (even though they don't talk about abortion, so it's not really comprehensive). To my knowledge, this organization is the largest resource that our kids have in the nation for comprehensive sex ed. And do you know who they are? Planned Parenthood. And the House just voted to cut ALL their funding (none if which was going toward abortion anyway).
So, back to those kids who don't get ANY education about birth control, or who don't pay attention on the only 1-2 days of class where they learn about it, or who can't learn everything in such a short period & remember it forever no matter how seriously they take it.... They need to have access to medical advice & care throughout their reproductive lifetimes if we want them to be good at preventing pregnancy & abortion - we all do. Title X is the only dedicated federal family planning program & serves millions of women who are trying to not get pregnant. They ARE taking personal responsibility when they go to a clinic for birth control (or STD tests, or breast exams, etc). So personal responsibility is not relevant in this discussion because Congress is only voting on whether or not to remove the means by which people can & do take personal responsibility.
Many, many public schools too.