What's a girl to do?

In her commentary “Women Just Can’t Win,” Ms Ag discusses the cancelling of federal government funds for women’s health care in Texas. The Obama administration’s decision to shut down funding was made in response to Texas government enacting an abortion funding prohibition. That is, Texas government wanted to stop federal funds going to women’s health programs that provided abortion services, namely Planned Parenthood. The federal government had warned that cutting out certain clinics because of specific services would endanger funding but the Texas government proceeded. The federal government found this to be a restriction of freedom of choice and decided not to renew funding to the Texas Women’s Health Program.

Ms Ag addresses Perry’s accusation that Obama cares more about abortion providers than the women who would be receiving care, when it was Texas who first put the restriction in the program. She also addressed the fact that Perry simply wanted to play by his own rules and now there is no federal funding. Despite both of these comments, the main focus of the commentary is the misfortune of this situation, and not placing blame on any one group. I feel similarly to this. Regardless of why the funding stopped, whether it be because Texas stood their ground on not funding clinics, or the federal government stood by their principals of freedom and fairness, the outcome is unfortunate for over 100,000 low-income Texas women.

Women’s health care has been a controversial topic, especially here in Texas, when regarding abortions. While many are strongly against funding going to these services, the fact is that many clinics that are now not receiving federal funds do not provide these services. And the ones that do also provide many other services to women that are unrelated to abortion. These other services include breast and cervical cancer screenings, birth control, hormone patches and other preventative medical care. The governor has stated that Texas will now be funding these services, however, he did not specify how this would be done. It’s hard to imagine how the amount and the quality of clinic care will keep up considering that until now, the federal government has been covering 90% of these costs, and Texas already faces many financial difficulties.

Although it seems like there isn’t much to be done about the issue at the moment, many women openly shared their thoughts on governor’s confidence about taking on this responsibility on his Facebook. They’ve since been removed but some of the more interesting and entertaining comments can be found here. Though they are humorous, the reality of this situation is much more serious. I agree with Ms Ag and say that I really do hope that Perry will deliver and keep up women’s health care.