Posted on 03/01/2012 7:28:29 AM PST by laotzu
Rosa Rodriguez is not happy living on the government dole.
She got pregnant at 19 and never finished college or moved beyond a string of low-paying jobs. Now 28, she's unemployed and a single mother of two living in public housing on the far West Side.
The roughly $8,000 she earns in child support qualifies her for food stamps. To qualify in Texas for Medicaid, however, she'd have to earn less than half of that.
She knows another baby would make things worse.
So for the past few years, Rodriguez has been one of about 130,000 women in Texas who receive free birth control and preventative health care through the Women's Health Program, a Medicaid waiver on the brink of dissolution because Republican lawmakers are not willing to allow Planned Parenthood to participate.
Its erasure has been fueled by a contingent of far-right lawmakers willing to traffic in disaster for a paradoxical goulash of principles — pro-life and anti-contraception — that cancel each other out.
They are blaming the Obama administration, of course. But this is cynicism unspooling beyond reason to an abstracted realm where mindless politics turn cruel.
Among the facts:
The WHP does not pay for abortions.
It provides cancer screenings, health exams and contraception to low-income women such as Rodriguez who are not eligible for Medicaid in Texas because they aren't extraordinarily poor enough.
The WHP saves the state money.
For every dollar the state invests, the federal government pays $9. By diverting unintended Medicaid-cost pregnancies, the 5-year-old program saves the state about $40 million a year.
Planned Parenthood serves about 40 percent of women who qualify for the program statewide.
Federal officials say it's illegal for the state to limit any qualified provider willing to serve these women. Rather than permit Planned Parenthood clinics to participate, Republican lawmakers are allowing the program to end.
The clinics offering these services, however, do not provide abortions.
In San Antonio, for instance, Planned Parenthood operates seven clinics, and the four that offer the services do not provide abortions.
The three that do provide abortions are audited to prove that none operate with state money.
“We have this enormously burdensome — yet we have participated in it — process to prove that not one single dollar from any of these prohibited revenue streams for family planning ever reaches the organization that provides abortion care,” said Jeffrey Hons, president and CEO of the Planned Parenthood Trust of South Texas.
“It is only the four clinics that do not provide abortion that are going to be thrown into some level of threat or jeopardy because of this,” he said.
By swinging the axe only at family planning, conservative lawmakers are not reducing abortions, but rather cutting off access to birth control.
These lawmakers launched this warped attack in the previous legislative session, when they stripped $62 million from family planning funding in an acknowledged effort to starve Planned Parenthood.
The inevitable consequence will be more of the abortions they profess to abhor, as well as bigger, poorer families consuming more state funds through social services.
On Tuesday, Rodriguez sat on a couch in her cluttered apartment, her tiny balcony overlooking the barbed-wire perimeter of Lackland Air Force Base.
As her 4-year-old daughter ran from room to room, she recalled wanting to join the Air Force after high school.
Her teenage pregnancy deferred that plan. Five years later, she quit San Antonio College when caring for her second child became a burden.
She receives contraception from a local Planned Parenthood clinic. If the WHP ends this month, she'll lose access.
“More than likely,” she said, “I'll end up pregnant.”
Unwanted, then a burden, and ultimately a tool with which to threaten.
I thanked God for the priveledge of raising a child. However; I am an extremist.
Take heart; you are not alone.
“...“More than likely,” she said, “I’ll end up pregnant.”...”
Guess she hasn’t figured out exactly how that works, eh?
Must be a liberal.
Well Rosa, dependency is slavery and always will be.
The tone of this article, and others, is that pregnancy is something that just happens to women. They make it sound like contraception is needed to guard against a disease called pregnancy.
I’m not saying they should be graphic and explicit at what causes pregnancy. But I can’t help but notice there is no mention of husbands or boyfriends in these stories about pregnancy. It’s as if women just get pregnant for unknown reasons, and we have no way to prevent that, except for free birth control.
It’s astounding how some issues are discussed.
Take away abortion, free birth control, welfare and entitlements, and not one young woman in a hundred would engage in promiscuous sex. The illegitimacy rate would fall down to a very manageable level.
No you are not an extremist and I know you know it. Whatever happened to personal responsibility. Well, I’m stupid. I, unconsciously, want government to run my life.
the Express-News is beyond belief.
the lanuage in this article sounds like one of those crazed give-away ‘alternative’ newspapers.
This young woman could find the $9 for birth control somewhere, I am sure.
And the complete lack of male input here in terms of pregnancies boggles the mind. Babies are found under cabbage leaves I suppose.
It is not the job of the government to pay for your stuff.
Until people learn that, we are in deep doodoo
free money!! free money!!.... so where does the fedgov get that money??
The Family was the first human institution and was instituted by God.
It is no wonder that it is the primary target of attack from Satan’s minions on the left.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a “social policy” of the left that wasn’t detrimental to the traditional family.
This is how the left progresses on every issue -
first with a plea for tolerance,
then finally ending up with forced participation.
bchasnoff@express-news.net
that is the ‘journ-o-listers’ email address
This young woman, who's living on the public dole & has already been knocked up (at least) twice, should continue to be a sperm depository for the various men in her life, without the risk of pregnancy. And this would be better than her continuing to spread her legs and getting pregnant, which would cost the taxpayers even more $$.
No mention of her personal responsibility in this matter at all.
The assumption with the left is that sex just HAS to happen.
I assert this comes from the assumption of evolution - we’re no different than the animals that HAVE to mate.
Gee Rosa, perhaps if you had a JOB, you would be so tired that SEX with random men would be the last thing on your mind.
Instead, me and my JOB are expected to subsidize your sexual needs.
Bizarro world.
Mrs. AV
Wrong. I work with anywhere from 10-15 women age 22-30 on average and they are not poor, all are college educated. They don't need free bc, welfare or entitlements as they all do pretty well wage wise.
Oh and did I say they are horn dogs and they are definitely not chaste. I have heard things that would boggle your mind.
“The roughly $8,000 she earns in child support...”
Earns???
I wrote the fool back.
When people figure out that it is not the job of the government (taxpayers) to buy you things, then maybe this country can make some real progress towards the long-forgotten idea of common sense. Your column is simply a reminder of how far we have come since we lost that compass.
1. Not being paid for by government doesn’t mean there is less access to birth control pills (It’s about $9 a month at Wal-Mart and Target)
2. Planned Parenthood is a billion dollar corporation, not part of government. Therefor it should not be getting government funding, it definitely is not entitled to them.
3. Rosa Rodriguez, judging from your column, has yet to put two and two together when it comes to HOW she gets pregnant. I notice not one single mention of a boyfriend or husband besides the mention of child support. (Talk about mindless)
4. Stop trying to peddle the notion that funding Planned Parenthood doesn’t pay for abortions, I have never yet been able to only fill up the shallow end of the pool.
5. “For every dollar the state spends (invests?-lol) the federal government pays $9”... free money!! free money!! Federal dollars never cost taxpayers anything! How cool is that? ... err... not so much. Anything the federal or state government gives away it has taken away from someone else plus the cost of overhead which is much higher than any charities or the mafia for that matter.
The only ones who are ‘mindless’ are people who agree with you.
Like the college girl who testified in front of Congress I guess.
We need to end entitlements NOW.
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