Friday, May 13, 2011
Contraception Suffers "Collateral Damage" in Republicans' War on Abortion
San Francisco Chronicle/Bloomberg: Abortion Battles Make Collateral Damage of Family Planning:
As the city-run Women's Health Center in Bayonne, New Jersey, closed its doors last month for the final time, workers hauled away desks, cabinets and dozens of white boxes labeled "pregnancy tests" and "condoms."
The clinic was one of six forced to close after Governor Chris Christie eliminated the $7.45 million in state funding for family planning last year. Christie, who opposes abortion, said the state could no longer afford it.
His fellow Republicans, energized by the November elections that gave them control of 29 U.S. governorships and 25 legislatures, this year have introduced a record number of measures restricting abortion. They are also cutting services that provide gynecological care, sex education and contraception to a population of predominantly poor women. . . .
Huffington Post: Kansas Anti-Abortion Bill Could Also Block Planned Parenthood Funding, by Laura Bassett:
The Kansas state legislature passed a bill early Friday morning that bans insurance companies from offering abortion coverage in their general plans in most cases and manipulates the state budget to cut all Title X family planning funding from Planned Parenthood. The new Kansas bill places Planned Parenthood at the very bottom of the priority funding list for family planning funding under Title X, a federal grant program that funds reproductive health services for low-income and uninsured patients. . . .
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/reproductive_rights/2011/05/contraception-suffers-collateral-damage-in-republicans-war-on-abortion.html