“Don’t Mess With Texas Women Bus Tour”; Losing Options for Health Care

Follow The Women’s Health Express progress on their Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/PPNorthTexas. While you’re at that page, take a look at the Facebook page for Gov. Rick Perry, who we understand may have been abandoned his own page. It’s been commented on by women  protesting his administration’s actions against women and their healthcare. http://www.facebook.com/GovernorPerry

Planned Parenthood is hitting the road on the “Women’s Health Express,” crisscrossing the state to make sure Rick Perry gets our message: stop playing politics with women’s lives.  Join fellow women’s health supporters  to support Texas women.

Every month, PPNT hosts an event for supporters to mix and mingle while helping PPNT with an important project – no forms or long-term commitment needed. Visit our monthly update to sign up or join the Action Network to get emails about future Volunteer Nights. If you have  questions about our volunteer program, email info.public@ppnt.org. Email info.public@ppnt.org or call 214-302-8386.

NYT: Women in Texas Losing Options for Health Care in Abortion Fight

“Leticia Parra, a mother of five scraping by on income from her husband’s sporadic construction jobs, relied on the Planned Parenthood clinic in San Carlos, an impoverished town in South Texas, for breast cancer screenings, free pills and pap smears for cervical cancer.”

“But the clinic closed in October, along with more than a dozen others in the state, after financing for women’s health was slashed by two-thirds by the Republican-controlled Legislature.”

“The cuts, which left many low-income women with inconvenient or costly options, grew out of the effort to eliminate state support for Planned Parenthood. Although the cuts also forced clinics that were not affiliated with the agency to close — and none of them, even the ones run by Planned Parenthood, performed abortions — supporters of the cutbacks said they were motivated by the fight against abortion.”

Now, the same sentiment is likely to lead to a shutdown next week of another significant source of reproductive health care: the Medicaid Women’s Health Program, which serves 130,000 women with grants to many clinics, including those run by Planned Parenthood. Gov. Rick Perry and Republican lawmakers have said they would forgo the $35 million in federal money that finances the women’s health program in order to keep Planned Parenthood from getting any of it.