Citing new research showing that Texas’ increased restrictions on abortion are negatively affecting women, family planning clinics, and abortion providers in the state, Rep. Jessica Farrar will file a bill this week to overturn the forced 24-hour waiting period.
Anti-choicers attacking Medicaid funding for women’s health care claim that it’s about abortion, but their interest in redirecting patients to centers that don’t provide even basic health care show it’s about so much more, a war in which women are just collateral damage.
If Texas excludes Planned Parenthood from participating in its new state-funded “Texas Women’s Health Program,” 1,748 clients in one city alone–Austin–will have to find new health care providers. That means existing providers, some of which currently see just one or two patients a year, will have to take on about 60 new patients each, even as they deal with a 66 percent cut in overall family planning funding.
