Planned Parenthood In Ohio, Wisconsin Loses Battles
by Laura Bassett
04/20/2012
WASHINGTON-- The GOP may insist that there is no war on women, but the campaign against Planned Parenthood, which provides health care to one in five American women each year, is gaining ground in the Midwest.
Republican state representatives in Ohio slipped an amendment into the state's substitute budget bill on Tuesday that puts family planning clinics like Planned Parenthood at the bottom of funding priorities and blocks them from receiving funding for cancer screenings and HIV and domestic violence services.
Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin announced on Friday that it has stopped providing nonsurgical abortions, which make up about 25 percent of all abortions performed at its clinics, due to a new state law that criminalizes physicians who perform them.
Defunding Planned Parenthood through Ohio's budget bill is a way for GOP lawmakers to pass the measure without having to vote on a separate bill, which would likely cause controversy. The Planned Parenthood amendment, introduced by Republicans in the House Finance Committee on Tuesday, puts family planning clinics that provide abortions in the bottom tier of priority for Title X funds,
making it more likely that the state will run out of money before it can provide any funding to Planned Parenthood.
The amendment further prohibits federal funds from the Minority HIV/AIDS Initiative, the Violence Against Women Act, the Breast and Cervical Cancer Mortality Prevention Act and the Infertility Prevention Project from going to Planned Parenthood or any other family planning clinic that provides abortions.
The GOP-controlled House is expected to vote on the budget bill next week and pass it, with the amendment attached.
"This House seems to stop at nothing to attack women and their reproductive rights, and in this case, their access to basic health care and cancer screenings," State Rep. Kathleen Clyde (D-Kent), a member of the House Finance Committee, told HuffPost. "It's just a very tough legislature to be a part of."...
For the full article, go to:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/20/war-on-planned-parenthood-ohio-wisconsin_n_1441148.html
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