Republicans have been trying with all their might to stop women from having abortions—by any means necessary. Even though it’s absolutely none of their business what a woman chooses to do with her body, especially since we have the right to contraception and family planning (which includes safe, legal abortions), it hasn’t stopped them from their ridiculous crusade to defund Planned Parenthood and limit funding for family planning all around the country.
In Texas, they’ve been masterful at this. So far, over the course of several years, they’ve managed to reduce the budget for family planning by millions of dollars which has resulted in the closing of more than 80 women’s health clinics. And, as it turns out, their efforts have only made the teen abortion rate rise.
[A study, conducted out of Texas A&M University by economics professor Analisa Packham,] shows that in the first three years after Texas Republicans slashed the family planning budget in 2011 and shut down more than 80 women’s health clinics, the abortion rate among teenagers in the state rose 3 percent over what it would have been had the clinics remained open. After cutting Planned Parenthood out of the state’s subsidized women’s health program, then-Gov. Rick Perry (R) said his “goal” was to “ensure abortions are as rare as possible under existing law.” But the move actually interfered with an overall downward trend in abortions in Texas.
Let’s get this straight. They cut off funding and access to family planning services and shut down clinics where teenagers could have gotten access to birth control and then the abortion rate went up. Gee, who’d have thunk it?
“This certainly isn’t the way to have fewer abortions,” said Dr. Diane Horvath-Cosper, an OB-GYN in Maryland and an advocate with Physicians for Reproductive Health. “The abortion rates nationally have decreased and are at a historic low. So for Texans to see an increase in adolescent abortions is really telling ― it seemed to have followed the national trend until these clinics were defunded.”
But facts and figures still don’t make an impact on these folks. In their continuous and sick obsession with this issue, they want to keep going—this time trying to defund Planned Parenthood nationwide. This will result in less babies being born, the exact opposite of what they want. “The Congressional Budget Office estimates this would cause 15 percent of women in rural areas to lose access to family planning care entirely, which in turn would lead to more unplanned pregnancies and likely more abortions.” So which is it Republicans? Do you want women having babies or not? Because slashing budgets for women’s health care, taking away these clinics and access to family planning services is not the way to do it—at all. But any one with a brain could have told you that. Stupid is as stupid does.