Congressional Attacks on Women's Health Care

Recently our country has been seeing many attacks on women's health care, and this week Rep. Mike Pence and House leadership launched the most devastating assault yet. They are aiming to eliminate Title X, the national family planning program, and they want to deny Planned Parenthood federal funds that go toward providing life saving cancer screenings, contraceptives, HIV testing and counseling, and STI testing and treatment. This legislative move would cut off health care to millions of women who need it most.

Through misleading claims of deficit reduction, the House leaders' extreme agenda plans to end this popular and effective program that helps prevent unintended pregnancy and provide essential health care. If successful, millions of women will lose access to basic primary and preventive health services. What's even worse is that 60 percent of women cared for by Planned Parenthood and similar health centers report that these centers are their only source of health care. Cutting this important funding means there will be more unintended pregnancies, patients left untreated, and women discovering too late that they have cancer.

Even though 90 percent of Planned Parenthood's health care offered is preventive, Rep. Pence wants to defund Planned Parenthood because it also offers abortion care to women in need, even though Title X has never paid for a single abortion. Planned Parenthood doctors and nurses annually provide nearly one million lifesaving cervical cancer screenings and 830,000 breast exams. They also provide nearly 2.5 million patients with contraception and administer four million tests and treatments for sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.

Claiming that slashing family planning funds will save our government money is completely inaccurate. In fact, Title X actually saves taxpayers money. For every public dollar invested in family planning, taxpayers save nearly $4.  Yet, in their ideological push to attack women's health, House leaders don't seem to care.

A recent Hart Research poll revealed that 71 percent of all voters, including 60 percent who voted for a Republican Congressional candidate in 2010, disagreed with Pence's effort to cut Title X funding. Clearly House leadership is out of touch with the needs and wishes of Americans, especially women. This is exactly why we need to urge them to reject these dangerous policies and end the attack on women's health care.

Stop anti-choice efforts to eliminate family planning funding by contacting your representative today!


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