Planned Parenthood activists visited Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s office this week to demand that Texas halt plans to expand the Healthy Texas Women Program. The Planned Parenthood representatives also delivered 15,000 letters and petitions, according to KHOU News. The visit to the governor’s office coincided with the final day for public comment on the Texas Health and Human Services plan to submit an application for a waiver from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). If granted, the 1115 waiver would allow Texas to use federal Medicaid dollars to expand the Healthy Texas Women program.
Planned Parenthood’s public protest of the proposal is revealing. Although the group claims to be concerned with women’s healthcare, they are adamantly opposed to expanding the Healthy Texas Women program if Planned Parenthood is not allowed back into the taxpayer funded program. This publicity stunt demonstrates once again that Planned Parenthood is concerned first and foremost with their bottom line, which allows them to promote abortion. Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion business in the United States with affiliates in major urban areas throughout Texas. The Healthy Texas Women program works with a growing network of qualified healthcare providers in urban and rural areas to offer healthcare at no cost to low-income Texas women between the ages of 15 and 44. Planned Parenthood affiliates excluded themselves from the program, and from other state funding, because of their commitment to abortion.
Planned Parenthood spokespersons described the proposed expansion of the Healthy Texas Women program as “political,” ignoring the many commonsense reasons for the state’s decision. Planned Parenthood is a highly controversial abortion business. Texas took steps to remove all Planned Parenthood affiliates from Medicaid contracts after several cases of documented Medicaid fraud by the abortion business and ongoing criminal investigations into Planned Parenthood’s selling the body parts of aborted babies for profit.
The Healthy Texas Women program, which began in 2012 under an earlier form, is a creative solution by Texas legislators to provide comprehensive life-affirming women’s healthcare to Texas women. The program offers family planning services, cancer screenings, and wellness visits. When tax dollars are given to Planned Parenthood affiliates and other abortion businesses, the money is fungible. Although state and federal dollars cannot pay directly for elective abortions, there is no way to stop those tax dollars from benefiting the whole abortion business and indirectly funding the killing of the preborn.
One Planned Parenthood volunteer told KHOU News, “They’re [Texas legislators] trying to put in something new to replace something that isn’t broke. That is trustworthy.” Planned Parenthood has demonstrated that the system is broken. Low-income Texas women seeking healthcare were sent to a profit-driven, predatory abortion industry. Planned Parenthood affiliates flouted the law, both by barbarically harvesting and trafficking the body parts of babies killed in abortion and by stealing from taxpayers in Medicaid fraud. Only the most ardent abortion activists could view these as indications of a “trustworthy” organization.
Planned Parenthood’s real concern is that if the Trump administration grants the waiver, other states will follow Texas’s lead in excluding abortion providers from healthcare programs. Texas has led the nation in many Pro-Life strategies, and other states are watching. Those states seeking to protect the rights of Pro-Life taxpayers while offering comprehensive women’s healthcare programs may indeed craft a similar life-affirming solution. If such measures go into effect, Planned Parenthood’s government funding could steeply decline. As the latest annual report for Planned Parenthood shows, 41% of the organization’s funding comes from government sources.
Texas Health and Human Services administrators are updating the application for the waiver with summary of the input collected during the period of public comment. Following the update, the application will be posted on the Health and Human Services website and submitted to the federal government.
This is just one front of the effort to keep taxpayer dollars from the abortion industry. During the latest Regular Legislative Session, Texas Right to Life spearheaded passing a budget-wide Pro-Life rider to remove the smaller, yet sinister, tentacles the abortion industry had on the Texas state budget.