Texas lawmakers celebrate "achievements" in women's health as thousands go without care

"If that’s what they call help for Texas women, we’ve had quite enough of it"

Published February 20, 2014 7:04PM (EST)

                                   (Alice Keeney/AP)
(Alice Keeney/AP)

The consequences of Texas' sweeping new abortion restrictions are now being felt across the state, but the status of reproductive healthcare in Texas had been dire long before conservative lawmakers passed the omnibus measure to shutter reproductive health clinics, restrict safe abortion services and leave thousands of women without access to necessary care.

Texas lawmakers passed a two-year budget in 2011 that cut $73 million from family planning programs; the following year, Rick Perry dissolved the state’s partnership with the federal Women’s Health Program, forfeiting millions in Medicaid funding for low-income women’s healthcare. Lawmakers restored some of this funding in 2013, but reproductive health providers like Planned Parenthood are barred from receiving it. That Perry has refused the Medicaid expansion has further compounded the crisis that has been building in the state, the blunt impact of which disproportionately impacts low-income women of color.

Republican "reforms" to the system have resulted in a 77 percent drop in the number of women being served by state health clinics at an additional cost of around 20 percent. The maternal mortality rate -- particularly among women of color -- is on the rise, and Texas has the highest uninsured rate in the nation.

It is in this context that the Texas Health and Human Services committee's decision to hold a hearing on the "progress" the state has made in women's healthcare seems like a particularly cruel joke. The committee intends to "build on previous legislative achievements in women’s healthcare," according to a statement on the hearing.

Activists in the state, who have remained focused on challenging the rollback of reproductive rights in the months since Wendy Davis' marathon filibuster, descended on Austin Thursday to provide testimony and protest the show hearing.

“When I heard about the hearing -- well, I felt like if the Daily Show was going to create a parody, they couldn’t have done a better job,” Amy Kamp, one of the women providing testimony at the hearing, told ThinkProgress. “If Texas wants to protect women’s health, I have a helpful suggestion. Just reinstate the old program we used to have!”

“It’s laughable that the same politicians that have devastated Texas women’s access to healthcare -- cancer screenings, birth control, and safe, legal abortion -- are now touting their so-called achievements in women’s health," said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund. "If that’s what they call help for Texas women, we’ve had quite enough of it."

You can follow on the ground coverage of the hearing on Twitter through #fightbackTX.


By Katie McDonough

Katie McDonough is Salon's politics writer, focusing on gender, sexuality and reproductive justice. Follow her on Twitter @kmcdonovgh or email her at kmcdonough@salon.com.

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