Side effects of the GOP's war on family planning

Here is part of a column from The Washington Post by Ruth Marcus -- please follow link for the rest of the story.


By Ruth Marcus
Wednesday, February 23, 2011

House Republicans voted to increase the number of abortions, raise federal health-care costs and swell the welfare rolls.

That wasn't their intent, of course, and certainly not their stated policy. But it is the predictable and inevitable impact of their twin moves to eliminate funding for the federal family planning program and strip Planned Parenthood of all federal money.

If anything, this assessment is understated. The sharper, and still accurate version, would be that Republicans voted to let more women die from breast cancer, cervical cancer and AIDS. How's that? The family planning programs also provide cancer screening and HIV counseling to millions of low-income and uninsured people.

Let's be clear about one thing. Almost none of this money went for abortions. The only federal funding for abortion involves the thankfully low number of situations in which poor women seek abortions for pregnancy due to rape or incest, or when their own lives are in jeopardy. In 2006, the last year for which figures are available, the federal government paid for 191 such abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

However, the House cuts are intended to punish abortion providers - specifically, Planned Parenthood, which is simultaneously the largest recipient of federal family planning funds and the largest abortion provider in the country.

Federal law requires Planned Parenthood to carefully separate its abortion expenses from its others. In most instances, abortions are performed in a different building or on a different floor, by different staff. That is not enough to satisfy abortion opponents, who insist that the federal money frees up other funds to underwrite abortions.
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But abortions represent 3 percent of the services Planned Parenthood provides; contraception accounts for 35 percent; testing for sexually transmitted diseases, 34 percent; cancer screening and prevention, 17 percent. ................