Posted on 01/30/2015 6:29:52 AM PST by Morgana
Four years after an aggressive legislative effort to keep Planned Parenthood from receiving state dollars for health care for low-income women, the Texas Senate is back at it — this time over funding for breast and cervical cancer screenings.
The proposed Senate budget would change how funding is distributed from the joint federal-state Breast and Cervical Cancer Services program, which provides cancer screenings for uninsured women. The revised system would prioritize funding to state, county and community health clinics, followed by “non-public entities” that provide screenings as part of “comprehensive” primary and preventative care. Clinics like Planned Parenthood, which specialize in family planning, would be the lowest priority for funding.
Planned Parenthood, which currently serves about 10 percent of the women who participate in the program, says the tiered system is just another effort to knock its clinics out of business. While some Planned Parenthood clinics perform abortions, those that receive government funding are already prohibited by law from performing abortions.
But the Senate's chief budget writer, state Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, said the language in the Senate budget is intended to ensure that facilities unaffiliated with abortion providers are funded first.
“There are many members that feel very strongly that the facilities that receive funding should not be facilities for performing abortions, so the answer is, don’t perform abortions and you get the money,” Nelson said Wednesday. “It’s a tiered system. We’re getting the money to those facilities that are delivering services and not performing abortions.”
The Republican-led Legislature slashed the state’s budget for family planning by two-thirds in 2011 in an effort to prevent health providers even loosely affiliated with abortion providers, like Planned Parenthood, from receiving state tax dollars.
(Excerpt) Read more at texastribune.org ...
Planned Parenthood, and this writer, is full of horse hockey!
You walk into ANY Planned Parenthood clinic and I guarantee that they DO NOT perform cancer screenings, they put you into contact with another clinic or provider - PERIOD! PP admitted this in 2011 - they do not have a single screening machine in Texas (at least they didn’t at the time)!
They should write the law to say only those clinics/facilities actually performing the screenings can get government funding!
As it is, the state legitimizes the charade that Planned Parenthood is some kind of a good thing, when in actuality, they are MURDERERS!!
Just pass a law that says no state funding for entities that do abortion
Sen. Nelson’s job just got much easier, with a much-needed rules change: instead of a 2/3 majority, now a simple majority is required to introduce a new bill in the Texas senate.
The old rule was put in place long ago to benefit the minority Dimocrats, allowing them to dictate what laws were passed in spite of their decreasing relevancy in Texas politics.
Jane Nelson is a staunch ally on this and other conservative issues!
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