In the on-going debate over taxpayer funding of abortion businesses like Planned Parenthood, there is a notion that the only medical problems experienced by women concern their reproductive system.
The concept that a visit to Planned Parenthood for a taxpayer funded supply of abortion-inducing drugs will relieve all of a woman’s ailments has most recently been made by the Obama Administration in its “Life of Julia” slideshow:
“Thanks to Obamacare, [Julia’s] health insurance is required to cover birth control and preventive care, letting Julia focus on her work rather than worry about her health.”
This is a red-herring being used in an effort to force taxpayers to subsidize the nation’s #1 abortion business, Planned Parenthood – and it should offend all advocates of women’s health.
Because the truth is women need and deserve access to real, comprehensive health care – “whole woman” care.
That’s why all Americans should be applauding Arizona’s recent passage of the Whole Woman’s Health Funding Priority Act (HB 2800), a bill that promotes comprehensive health care for women while protecting the conscience of taxpayers who don’t want to subsidize the abortion industry.
The legislation does not cut family planning funding, nor does it cut off access to health care services.
The implications of the new law are simple: Instead of going to Planned Parenthood and only receiving one type of specialized “care,” women instead will go to entities that are capable of providing comprehensive care.
These entities, to give one example, include federally qualified health care centers (FQHCs). In Arizona, there are at least 140 FQHCs – far outnumbering the fourteen Planned Parenthood clinics in the state, which are primarily located only in urban areas.
FQHCs provide women with the same preventative services offered by Planned Parenthood, plus everything they do not offer: mammograms, prenatal care, treatment of diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, depression, etc. What FQHCs don’t provide is abortion – the procedure on which Planned Parenthood has centered its entire business model.
The result of HB 2800 is that women have access to real, comprehensive, “whole woman” care – and taxpayers aren’t forced to subsidize Big Abortion.
A win-win, this law is an effective method to promote real, comprehensive health care for women, which takes a practical outlook on the medical needs a woman experiences over a lifetime.
So how does Planned Parenthood, the supposed “trusted friend” of women and young girls, respond to Arizona’s new commonsense law?
Unfortunately, just as expected, the nation’s largest abortion provider has responded like a business more concerned about its taxpayer-enriched bottom line than the welfare of those it purports to serve.
If there is a “war on women,” look no further than Arizona to see whose side Planned Parenthood is on.
