Melissa Reed
Last month, the U.S. House launched the most devastating legislative attack on women’s health care in American history. Under the guise of “deficit reduction,†the House voted to eliminate the national family-planning program (known as Title X) and to deny Planned Parenthood the federal funds it receives to provide affordable cancer screenings, birth control, HIV testing and counseling and sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment. Simply put, this dangerous ideological assault will cut off health care to millions of women who need it the most.
These measures must now be stopped in the Senate.
Title X is a popular and effective program that prevents unintended pregnancy and provides essential health services. Millions of women across the country are poised to lose access to basic primary and preventive health care, such as lifesaving cancer screenings, contraception, HIV testing and counseling and annual exams. Sixty percent of the women who are cared for by Planned Parenthood and similar health centers report that these centers are their only source of health care.
Gutting this program means that more women will go untreated and will discover too late that they have cancer.
North Carolina is home to nine Planned Parenthood health centers that provide services to more than 25,000 men and women every year. Most of those patients are uninsured or underinsured. More than 90 percent of the care Planned Parenthood health centers offer is preventive. Last year in North Carolina, Planned Parenthood doctors and nurses carried out 11,427 lifesaving screenings for breast and cervical cancer. They also dispensed more than 60,000 contraceptives and provided testing and treatment for more than 18,000 sexually transmitted infections.
When our nation is facing an unprecedented economic crisis, fiscal discipline and deficit reduction should be a priority. And family-planning programs like Title X save money. For every public dollar invested in family planning, taxpayers save nearly $4. Yet, in their ideological zeal to attack women’s health, the House leadership showed they do not care about the fiscal facts.
Now two new recent public polls show majority support for Planned Parenthood and clear opposition to efforts to bar Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funds for preventive health care such as lifesaving cancer screenings, breast exams, birth control and STD testing and treatment, including HIV testing.
A Quinnipiac University poll released March 7 found that a majority of voters (53 percent) opposed “cutting off federal government funding to Planned Parenthood.†The margin was 53 percent to 43 percent.
An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll also released March 7 found that 53 percent of Americans found it “mostly or totally unacceptable†to “eliminate funding to Planned Parenthood for family planning and preventive health services.â€
Among women overall, 56 percent found it “mostly or totally unacceptable†to “eliminate funding to Planned Parenthood for family planning and preventive health services.â€
Among women aged 18-49, 60 percent found it “mostly or totally unacceptable†to “eliminate funding to Planned Parenthood for family planning and preventive health services.â€
Americans, especially women, have risen to Planned Parenthood’s defense in an incredible and overwhelming way.
The extreme proposals from the House are bad policy, bad politics and bad for the health of women. That’s why we urge Sen. Richard Burr to join Sen. Kay Hagan to reaffirm mainstream values and reject this dangerous assault on women’s health.
Melissa Reed is the vice president for public policy at Planned Parenthood Health Systems Inc.