Planned Parenthood

Cecile Richards dicusses the attacks by Rick Perry on women's health care and the Planned Parenthood bus tour in Texas.

Politically motivated maneuver could leave more than 130,000 Texans without health care — comes on the heels of reduction in women’s health care to 180,000 women

AUSTIN, Texas - February 23 - Today Texas Governor Rick Perry moved to effectively sabotage the entire Medicaid Women’s Health Program, which provides preventive health care, including birth control and lifesaving cancer screenings, to more than 130,000 low-income women each year.

“Governor Perry and his conservative allies have once again chosen politics over the lives of Texas women,” said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “He will never know the reality of the women that rely on these programs. He will never know what it's like for a woman who feels a lump in her breast, but has to worry about the cost of a doctor’s visit.”

New legislation leaves over 130,000 without access to wellness exams, cancer screening, contraception

The Associated Press reports that Texas Legislature passed a law last year making it illegal for the state to provide Medicaid funds to a doctor or clinic affiliated with an organization that provides elective abortions, even if the institution receiving the money does not provide them...

Unless some last-minute agreement is brokered, the program, which receives $9 in federal funds for every $1 in state funds, will be either phased out or cut off by the end of March. At least 130,000 poor Texas women will lose access to cancer screenings, well-woman exams and contraception.

Rebecca Acuña, a spokeswoman for the Texas Democratic Party, said:

"Texas Republicans never miss an opportunity to throw the most vulnerable Texans under the bus so that they can pick a fight with the federal government."

Women are Watching is Planned Parenthood Action Fund's 2012 campaign to educate women and men across the country about the unprecedented attacks on women's health and where candidates stand on pivotal health care issues, empower women to hold anti-women's health candidates of either party accountable, and work to elect pro-women's health candidates up and down the ballot.

www.womenarewatching.org

Mitt Romney has a vision: