The present system of taxpayer funding for contraception and abortion, especially for lower income women, is under increased scrutiny and controversy as the supposed funding for abortions at taxpayer expense comes under fire. The recent cuts to the women’s health and family planning program and the defunding issues regarding Planned Parenthood are once again in the public eye.
Yet, what are the real issues causing the present controversy between the pro-life and the pro-choice movements? What exactly are the services being provided? Who is paying for what? Should taxpayers fund contraceptive care and pregnancy counseling?
Left to Right: Garnett, Edmondson, Lambrecht, McKernan
Panelists Include
- Dianne Edmondson: Executive Director, Republican National Coalition for Life
- Karen Garnett: Executive Director, Catholic Pro-Life Committee of North Texas
- Ken Lambrecht: President & CEO, Planned Parenthood of North Texas
- Stephen McKernan, DO, FAAFP, CEO, Lone Star Family Health Center
There has long been an argument over taxpayers funding contraceptive care and divisiveness over government funding to Planned Parenthood by those who oppose abortion and claim that is in large part what the organization does. Diane Edmondson of Republican National Coalition for Life says, “We have cut funding to Planned Parenthood very intentionally… Federal law allows states to set qualifications for any provider receiving Medicaid funds. By eliminating providers such as Planned Parenthood – which are narrow in scope, we can actually provide better care to (low income) women.”
Yet the argument from Planned Parenthood and other family and women’s health providers is the urgent need for more access to health care not less. Ken Lambrecht of Planned Parenthood tells us: “The national average for physicians to patient’s ratio is 200 physicians to every 100,000 people; in Texas it is 157 physicians for every 100,000. In Texas, ¼ of women are uninsured, yet Texas has the 3rd highest rate of cervical cancer and the 4th highest rate of teen pregnancy. With Planned Parenthood representing 40-45% of health care visits via the women’s health care programs, women will not have anywhere to go. This issue is not about abortion… it’s about access to care. Our mission is prevention. We are the medical home to 1 of 5 women in the U.S. at some time in their life. ”
Karen Garnett of Catholic Pro Life Committee argues, “We can’t take abortion out of the equation. It is morally objectionable for many tax payers to have any of their tax dollars going to an organization that performs abortions.”
Dr. McKernan of Lone Star Family Health Center expresses his concerns for the need for access to comprehensive health care for low income women and their families. “The reality of this is that 185,000 women receive care through the women’s health care program; another 220,000 through the family planning program. These cuts could decimate these programs- that’s 400,000 women who will not have access to preventive care. The Legislature wasn’t thinking well.”
The issues surrounding who should pay for what and what gets funded by whom is not going away anytime soon. Yet this is an issue that affects us all- the tax payer and the people who need care and can’t afford the cost. We hope you tune in, question the perspectives our panelists offer and get involved – from whatever position you believe to be the fair one.
Thank you once again for joining us on issues that really matter with people who really care:
Niki Nicastro McCuistion, CSP
Co-founder and Executive Producer
Management and Strategic Analyst
nikin@nikimccuistion.com
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2005 – 06.24.12
Planned Parenthood needs to go away all together. I am a pro-life woman who truly believes that individuals need to start facing consequences for their actions. Sex has become a form of cultural entertainment instead of the intimate act shared by a married man and woman. Contraception costs $9.00 a month and if a woman cannot afford it, then abstain from having sex! And it is not only the woman responsible for preventing, the man is responsible as well.
Also, the Catholic Belief about contraception is so misunderstood. Contraception is evil in the catholic church’s eyes, because it causes women and men to be reckless with their bodies – the idea of having self-respect is on-existent when it comes to respecting one’s own body. Have I used contraception? Yes- just after I got married, I used contraception to put off having children until my husband and I settled down in our marriage. After having the children we wanted, we went through sterilization. Overall, we took responsibility for our lives where many individuals do not because they look at sex as a source of entertainment that they have a “right” to instead of an act of love God created for those who celebrated the Sacrament of Matrimony, therefore committing their lives to each other and any children they have. This world has become very self-serving and “me” oriented instead of people who take responsibility for their actions and the lives they affect.
I do not appreciate the Dr. from Planned Parenthood stating that 98% of catholic women use birth control – that is not the point. The point that needs to be made is that taxpayers and faith based employers should NOT be responsible for paying for other people’s contraception. In addition, I was disappointed with the Susan B. Komain organization that backed down from their statement they would not fund Planned Parenthood. As soon as they reversed their decision, I started expressing my opnion to others that I would not support the Breast Cancer organization for that reason – NO DONATIONS should be spent on abortions at Planned Parenthood. I know many others who feel the same way. And there is no way they could convince me that those dollars are spent on tests like mammograms, etc. There are WAY too many imaging centers that are willing to partner with Susan B. Komen to provide such services.
Tracy
There is some blatant misinformation in Ken Lambrecht’s description of Planned Parenthood’s methods of operation and services. If you doubt what I am about to tell you, come down and stand on the sidewalk in front of Planned Parenthood’s Abortion Center and other feeder clinics. Watch and take notes. Talk to the people going in and out and do it over a period of time. A pattern will start to emerge.
Some key points in that televised show:
…Note Ken Lambrecht says their facilities are legally separated. However, they are not physically separated. I don’t think that many mothers would disagree that dropping your young people off for theater practice (PP’s TACT program) at an abortion center on Saturday morning, while advertized abortions or abortion couseling is going on, is a healthy thing. Maybe legally separate, but there is something physically going on in that next room and it is not theater practice.
…When you call the abortion center, they say they do not give out contraception, that they are just a surgical center, but we see girls coming out with birth control packets.
…Mr. Lambrecht says they will not be able to give needed health care with the defunding. Well, we can tell you from talking to their women, they weren’t getting it anyway, nor were they referred to where they could get it, sometimes only a few miles away. That’s plain mean. We started printing up a sheet of paper so they could find out where to really go for health problems, mammograms etc. as well as health care for their husbands and childrens. Remember, there are over 2,000 of these places in the WHP. Who needs the 44 PP’s that were in it? All this Planned Parenthood crying over women’s loss of health care now that they are being defunded out of the picture, like they had been some big comprehensive providers for them all along.
….And since when does reproductive care mean giving young women(75% of PP’s clients are between the ages of 17-24), a pill that the World Health Organization (WHO) has classified as a Group 1 carcinogen, and failing to mention that important fact to them?
….Also, when did the coined phrase Family Planning( PP changed the name of their organization from the Birth Control League in 1942 to Planned Parenthood) come to mean giving out mass contraception to young women who are not planning any families, who are neither married, or planning to get married soon. The taxpayers have been duped into funding widespread planned promiscuity to the tune of $1,000,000 a day.
…The fact that PP says they are a trusted provider, (due to their clever marketing program), does not mean that there is not a heap of growing evidence to the contrary.
… Here’s a few things to know about this so called trusted provider of supposed health care:
They are under federal investigation for medicaid fraud, failure to report sexual abuse, and aiding in human trafficking. They have designated judges who wil over rule a parent of a minor who wishes to have an abortion. I have personally witnessed this sad story.
…Planned Parenthood is not out of money because of a little defunding. For a tax exempt, so called non profit, to have $85million dollars left over at the end of the year ,and over a billion dollars in assets is unconscionable, and still they cry for more taxpayer money.
..And let’s talk about Ken Lambrecht’s adoption statistics. Do you know that 98.14 %of pregnant women who go into Planned Parenthood are sold an abortion? Not too many adoptions being encouraged there, I would say. And no, I have never talked to any of their clients at any of their clinics who were told there was any healthy alternative to a carcinogenic birth control pill. So much for Lambrecht’s assurance about information on natural family planning.
… Please for your sake, your children’s sake, the proper use of taxpayer money, vote this phony health care provider out of business. Sure,there may be a few bumps in the transition road to good health services in this country, but we arn’t going to get there, if we don’t quit putting our heads in the sand and throwing money at people who are contributing to the problem and not providing what is really needed. Get behind the 2,000+ FQHCs (Federally Qualified health Centers) in the state of Texas and vote them the money they need to comprehensively serve the whole family, not just an unmarried woman seeking some birth control for her irresponsible lifestlyle funded by taxpayer money. And yes, there are a precious few married couples, but almost statistically insignificant, who come to Planned Parenthood, but they are rare. Come and see for yourself.
….
Ken Lambrecht said that Planned Parenthood’s abortion business is totally separate from its birth control business. It is not. Here is a link to the website of Planned Parenthood’s Greenville abortion center in Dallas, which Lambrecht wanted viewers to believe is just a surgical center.http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-center/findCenter.asp?s=TX&o=1&p=4&c=D&l=0
Notice birth control is listed among the offerings, right under abortion. Lambrecht gave a litany of other surgeries that are supposedly taking place there in addition to abortions. However, those are not listed among the offerings on the website. The entities may be separate on paper, but operate in the same building in reality.
Planned Parenthood is the visible head of the abortion industry, and no amount of verbal or bookkeeping gymnastics can separate it from its radical abortion agenda. Planned Parenthood of North Texas says in its annual report that it committed 6,464 abortions in 2010. That is more than 215 classrooms full of children snuffed out by PP of North Texas during one fiscal year alone. It ended the year with a $3.6 million surplus!
There is no justification for what Planned Parenthood does to women and children. It seeks to sexualize children from the youngest ages by presenting graphic sexual information to them. Go to http://www.all.org/article/index/id/MTAwMjY/ to see examples of just how Planned Parenthood presents information to children and young people about sexuality. WARNING: This is graphic material, not suitable for children or teens. If a dirty old man showed it to children in a park, he would be arrested. Planned Parenthood shows it to children in the classroom and it gets more government money.
It is time that taxpayers understood the full truth about Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is bad for families, bad for women and bad for our society. Planned Parenthood is the problem, not the solution.
The truth is that Planned Parenthood does not provide comprehensive primary and preventative care. Women deserve to have a primary care physician, like those that can be found at Federally Qualifed Health Centers, where they can see a physician who can provide comprehensive primary and preventative care.
There are a large number of comprehensive health providers listed in Tarrant County on the Health and Humam Service Center’s find a provider website. All women have to do is enter their zip code to find a qualified provider in their area.
By enforcing state law to remove the abortion industry from the list of qualified providers, state lawmakers are helping women get the full-service, comprehensive health care that they deserve and that Planned Parenthood cannot or will not provide.
The only time a women sees a doctor at a Planned Parenthood facility is immediately before an abortion procedure. Women deserve better. Women deserve real healthcare
Mr. Lambrecht claims that Planned Parenthood’s Surgical Center on Greenville Ave. does not provide family planning services, only abortion and surgical procedures, is false according to their website that clearly lists birth control as a service offered at this abortion facility.
I applaud the state Health Department upholding state law and only approving the best, high quality comprehensive healthcare providers that Texas women deserve.
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