History > 2011 > USA > Women (I)
Barbara Kruger
When States Punish Women
NYT
2.6.2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/03/opinion/03fri1.html
When
States Punish Women
June 2,
2011
The New York Times
The Obama
administration has rightly decided to reject a mean-spirited and dangerous
Indiana law banning the use of Medicaid funds at Planned Parenthood clinics,
which provide vital health services to low-income women.
The law, signed by Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana in May, is just one effort by
Republican-led state legislatures around the country to end public financing for
Planned Parenthood — a goal the House Republicans failed to achieve in the
budget deal in April. The organization is a favorite target because a small
percentage of its work involves providing abortion care even though no
government money is used for that purpose.
Governor Daniels and Republican lawmakers, by depriving Planned Parenthood of
about $3 million in government funds, would punish thousands of low-income women
on Medicaid, who stand to lose access to affordable contraception, life-saving
breast and cervical cancer screenings, and testing and treatment for H.I.V. and
other sexually transmitted diseases. Making it harder for women to obtain birth
control is certainly a poor strategy for reducing the number of abortions.
On Wednesday, the administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services, Donald Berwick, said the Indiana law, which is already in effect,
violates federal Medicaid law by imposing impermissible restrictions on the
freedom of Medicaid beneficiaries to choose health care providers.
Although Mr. Berwick’s letter to Indiana officials did not say it explicitly,
Indiana could lose millions of dollars in Medicaid financing unless it changes
its law. In a bulletin to state officials around the country, the Medicaid
office warned that states may not exclude doctors, clinics or other providers
from Medicaid “because they separately provide abortion services.”
So far, Indiana isn’t budging. The issue will be taken up on Monday in federal
court in Indiana where Planned Parenthood has filed a suit challenging the
state’s action on statutory and constitutional grounds. The organization
properly argues that it may not be penalized for engaging in constitutionally
protected activities, like providing abortion services with its own money.
The Obama administration’s opposition to the Indiana law could help deter other
states — including North Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin and Tennessee — from moving
forward with similar measures to restrict payments to Planned Parenthood, either
under Medicaid or Title X, the main federal family planning program. Kansas, for
example, has enacted provisions to block Planned Parenthood from receiving any
Title X money.
The measures against Planned Parenthood come amid further efforts to limit
access to abortion. Just since April, six states — Indiana, Virginia, Nebraska,
Idaho, Oklahoma and Kansas — have enacted laws banning insurance coverage of
abortion in the health insurance exchanges created as part of federal health
care reform, bringing the total to 14 states. Two states — Arizona and Texas —
joined three others in making ultrasounds mandatory for women seeking to
terminate pregnancies. Bills expected to be signed soon by Florida’s Republican
governor, Rick Scott, contain both types of provisions.
Many of these fresh attacks on reproductive rights, not surprisingly, have come
in states where the midterm elections left Republicans in charge of both
chambers of the legislature and the governor’s mansion.
When States Punish Women, NYT, 2.6.2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/03/opinion/03fri1.html
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