The past few years have seen an aggressive campaign to defund Planned Parenthood in Texas. And now those cuts have resulted in a steep drop in contraception and a 27% increase in births, reports The Guardian.The information comes from a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Tens of thousands of women rely on Planned Parenthood for reproductive healthcare screenings and family planning services. When those facilities are forced to close, it has real-world repercussions on the population at large. In January 2013, Texas became the first state to cut off almost all federal and state funds to Planned Parenthood. And now Republican leaders in several states are attempting to follow in Texas’s footsteps.
In many states, Planned Parenthood used to provide free or low-cost STI and cancer screenings and contraceptives to low-income women. Now most affiliates will have to charge for these services, putting them out of reach for poor women.
