Texas legislators shift money from family planning clinics, see rise in teen pregnancy

I listen with incredulity as conservative GOP talking heads pontificate about "liberal judicial activists" who "legislate from the bench."

It's a magic trick, that, as they gesture madly with one hand and quickly redirect funding and legislate morality behind their backs and ours with the other hand.

In a Dallas Morning News story released Friday, we find out that

"Clinics that have been providing family-planning services find themselves on the losing end of a fight over how the state can best provide birth control, screenings for sexually transmitted diseases and other services.

. . .
Over the last four years, lawmakers have diverted millions of dollars from the specialty clinics such as Planned Parenthood to expand family-planning services at community health centers, which provide a broader range of services. In the current legislative session, lawmakers may give back some money to the specialty clinics – but only what's left unused by the health centers."

On the surface, you might think, "It seems to make sense, to fund community health centers."

But let's look at some more information to show why this isn't the best use of funding, and how it's more morality restrictions that negatively affect women's health care.

• family planning clinics offer a wide-range of women's health care, from annual exams to mammograms and family planning
  
  "The clinics are very targeted, they don't have a lot of overhead. The health centers have limited enrollment and can be a lot less accessible," said David Warner, a health care finance and policy expert at the University of Texas' Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. "Continuing to starve those clinics means that you're not going to be reaching the number of people you could be reaching with family-planning services." (Source: Dallas Morning News)
  
  
• clinics that receive money from the state of Texas cannot perform abortions. Conservatives have managed to block funded clinics from providing this legal reproductive option, and now they are seeking to create a new obstacle to birth control.
  
  
• this is a pound and penny foolish move. Cost for not providing family-planning is much, much higher than providing it. Since funding was diverted, teen pregnancy and birth is on the rise, which is part of a rising trend for abortion and adoption, too. Consider these facts:

* Texas is at the top of the list for teen pregnancy (Source: State Pregnancy Trends)

* Texas has the second highest rate of teen moms (Source: Women's Issues)
* a teen gets pregnant every ten minutes in Texas (Source: Texas Department of State Health Services)

• routine screenings can catch diseases---incuding heart disease, diabetes, infections, etc.---early and treat them before they cause additional, costly problems.

"Capan said her 21-year-old clinic, Denton-based Family Health Care Inc., was effectively performing complete physical exams – until the state cut her funding. Now, she can't afford to run urine, iron and blood sugar testing. And she's had to put patients on waiting lists for certain types of birth control, because she doesn't have the money."

• conservative state lawmakers who have supported the shift claim it has nothing to do with opposition to family-planning, but the actions speak louder than the words. Democrat leaders are wondering aloud why the money has been diverted, especially since

"Advocates say that as a result, the number of patients receiving state-funded reproductive health care services has dropped by nearly 22 percent, from 326,000 in 2005 to 255,000 in the last fiscal year. Meanwhile, the community health centers have left more than $11.5 million in unused state family planning dollars on the table since 2005, they say – money the clinics could've been using."

Comments

[Melissa]

Great post Julie!

Unfortunately, this is true at the national level as well. Title X, which funds family planning clinics, has been funded at/near $300 million per year for the last several. Obama's budget proposed increasing funding to $317 million in FY2010, but that is still FAR short of what we really need.

If Title X had kept pace with inflation since 1980, it'd be funded at $759 million or so. In real terms, funding for Title X is about 60-65 percent less today than it was in 1980.