U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum will discuss proposed federal funding cuts to family planning clinics Thursday at the St. Paul Planned Parenthood clinic on Rice Street.
The 4th District congresswoman will talk about pending legislation that would prohibit Title X Family Planning funding from going to health care providers that also provide abortion care with private funds. Planned Parenthood says this specifically targets them, because hospitals would be exempt from the provision.
Planned Parenthood says the legislation, introduced by Rep. Mike Pence, a Republican from Indiana:
“would severely restrict Planned Parenthood Minnesota’s ability to provide basic reproductive health care services to thousands of Minnesota women, many for whom Planned Parenthood is their only source of health care. By denying Title X to Planned Parenthood clinics, women will go without needed health care, putting them at greater risk of untreated STI infections, undetected breast and cervical cancers, high blood pressure, and HIV infection. Denying Title X family planning funding to health care providers who offer the full range of reproductive health care services will ultimately increase the number of women who will go without needed and critical reproductive health care, unintended pregnancy rates will rise, and with that, the number of abortions.”
Planned Parenthood said most of its Title X clinics are in rural Minnesota, “where women already have significant barriers to access.”
Thank you, Rep. McCollum.
The health needs of the many should trump the ideological notions of some….. who seem to care less what happens to the ‘others’ in their lives.
I believe legislation that makes one religious belief the law of the land is unconstitutional under the First Amendment.
Congress should be ashamed even to discuss it.