Not Everyone Hates Women's Health Care

Republican lawmakers might not like Planned Parenthood or funding family-planning health services – but Texas voters do. According to a recent poll commissioned by the nearly 100-year-old nonprofit, 56% of all Texas voters support continued state funding of family-planning health care for low-income women in Texas. That means that PP is actually more popular than either the Republican Party or Democratic Party, said Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, at a Capitol press conference last week. A majority of voters polled also believe the state should continue to provide funding to Planned Parenthood to provide well-woman checkups (53%), cancer screenings (56%), sexually transmitted infection screenings and treatments (56%), and birth control (59%) for low-income women.

The poll also revealed that 57% of respondents believe that Planned Parenthood should remain a provider of services for women enrolled in the Women's Health Program, the successful Medicaid waiver program that seeks to reduce Texas' Medicaid births – which in 2009 alone cost the state $2.7 billion. Certain lawmakers, led by Sen. Robert Deuell, R-Greenville, are seeking to keep PP from participating in the program even though PP currently serves some 40% of WHP clients. For more on the continued assault on women's health care, see our LegeLand blog at austinchronicle.com/legeland.