An Attack on Women and their Families

Iris is a 48-year-old immigrant mother of five living in New Jersey.* She cleans houses for a living, earning a meager salary of $520 every two weeks. Her husband gives her only $300 a month in child support, for a total family income of $1340 – from which she has to pay for rent, transportation, food and daycare for her young son. Last year, Iris experienced excruciating pelvic pain, and had irregular, ongoing periods for almost four solid months. Because Iris doesn’t have health insurance and is ineligible for Medicaid, she gets her reproductive healthcare at a Planned Parenthood clinic. When she went in for her Pap smear test, she also received a referral from Planned Parenthood to see a gynecologist, and get an ultrasound and a mammogram.

Luckily, her Pap test results were negative, but Iris hasn’t been able to schedule a follow-up appointment at her local Planned Parenthood clinic because New Jersey’s Governor, Chris Christie, has cut their funding. Iris might not know yet that all federal funding for Planned Parenthood is currently threatened, but the news will be devastating for her. She just doesn’t have the money to pay for reproductive healthcare elsewhere.

On Friday, the US House of Representatives voted 240-185 to cut off all taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood. U.S. House Representative Mike Pence (R-Indiana), who proposed the amendment, opposes abortion and previously tried to cut Title X funds from any reproductive health clinic that provide abortions. Title X, a federal program that funds the availability of low-cost family planning services, is so crucial for the reproductive health of millions of Americans that the Guttmacher Institute says, “[It] continues to be the glue that holds the national family planning system together, largely determining both its structure—through the nationwide network of clinics—and the substance of services that are provided to low- and moderate-income women and teenagers.”

Planned Parenthood is one of the many health clinics that received Title X funds, but Rep. Pence has publicly stated that his goal is to “end public funding of Planned Parenthood, specifically” even though the Hyde Amendment already renders Title X funds ineligible to provide abortion services.

With the federal funding that Planned Parenthood receives, they offer gynecological tests including pelvic exams, Pap tests, treatment to prevent cervical cancer, breast exams and contraceptives, pregnancy tests, screening and treatment of sexually transmitted infections, testing for high blood pressure, menopause treatment, and other basic but vitally necessary tests and treatments at very low or no cost. Planned Parenthood does not use Title X federal funds to provide abortions.

Like Iris, the lives and well-being of millions of low income women across the country are in peril. Millions of low income women in the United States face significant barriers to obtain health care. These women have a right to basic, life-sustaining treatment, and they desperately need their health in order to provide for their children. The current attack on Planned Parenthood is an attack on these women, their families and our communities. If Congress wants to protect lives, it should start by protecting women from losing what is sometimes their only path to basic, life-saving reproductive healthcare.

*Note: While “Iris” is a pseudonym to protect her identity, her story is factual. I obtained permission to tell her personal story in the course of my thesis research.
Photo credit to http://ginger-gal.tumblr.com/

Susana Sánchez, an international student from Costa Rica, works with PopDev as a Research Assistant. She came to the United States to complete her medical degree, and in the process became interested in the social problems that affect Latinos in the United States, particularly undocumented immigrants. She is a fourth-year student at Hampshire College, where she majors in immigration and gender studies. She loves to spend time with her family in New Jersey and dreams of the day she will return to her native Costa Rica to work on public policy and enjoy the country's beautiful seashore.