Let's Talk About Planned Parenthood in Texas

In this blog post, I will be responding to a slew of comments on this Mic. article: https://mic.com/articles/160424/texas-officially-defunds-planned-parenthood?fb_comment_id=1316213465087743_1320093818033041&comment_id=1320093818033041#.H0BV1vwLS

Here I have literally taken screenshots of every single comment made between the article's posting date and 00:51 on Dec 24, 2016. There are many comments. You're welcome. Let's begin.

This is Kevin.

Kevin is a middle-aged white man. He has what I presume from his Facebook profile are a wife and a teenage/college-age daughter. I don't want to believe that he harbors ill feelings towards women in Texas, but Kevin's comments indicate a lack of understanding of what it means to have physically accessible, financially accessible health care and resources.

Kevin felt strongly about the Mic. article and thus has engaged in a lot of discussion with other people on Facebook about it. Here they are. My comment, which is partially shown at the top of the first image, will be shared later.

10th Amendment gives any not-specifically-federal powers to the states and the people.  Kevin here is hopeful. There will be other solutions! But what are those solutions? By the way, health insurance is a fickle beast, even government-provided.

The Texas that is run by older white men who don't have vulvas, uteruses, periods, or financial troubles probably will not elect to have Medicaid absorb abortion costs. Also, I guess it's morally bankrupt to live in Texas and pay state taxes there. Good thing it's so easy to quit your job, move to a new state, find a new home there, find a new job there, get a new state ID card, and pay for moving costs. Wonder why more people don't just move whenever they want to.

Kevin's comment here confuses me. Since when are women threatening to kill doctors if they don't provide abortions or pap smears? Doctors who provide abortions or even just women's health services are stalked, harassed, and murdered in this country far more than other kinds of doctors. Carrie is right about TRAP laws, like medically unnecessary admitting privileges in Texas.

Angela was a little crude here but the point she makes is that Kevin's perspective is that of a person who is not affected by women's reproductive health and doesn't think that anyone else is either. Paul's comment on religious beliefs isn't exactly relevant but it's not irrelevant. However, his criticism is on point: it is cruel to deny someone a crucial health care service because you personally wouldn't use it.

Whitney explains to Kevin that pap smears are technically cancer screenings (for cervical cancer caused by HPV), but that doesn't mean they are covered under health insurance as cancer screenings. If you are denied Medicaid and can't afford decent private health insurance, you're paying for everything out of pocket. Providers work where they live and then work way far out because medical facilities really need doctors these days.

Good for you for being able to pay out of pocket for your shots, Lacy! Glad it wasn't too expensive. True, lots of health care providers do take Medicaid. That doesn't mean that all OB/GYNs will have fair cash prices or that the health care providers nearest you will accept Medicaid.

I doubt that the press would care that Medicaid doesn't cover everything... No one's tax dollars go toward abortion... If you can't fund an abortion, which can cost between $350-$3K depending on whether your insurance covers it, the number of hoops you have to jump through, and travel costs associated with going to a clinic way far away because it's the only one who will take you/the nearest one...if you can't even pay for an abortion, how can you be expected to be able to afford having a child? Also state-provided Medicaid doesn't cover you outside the state you live in.

"There is no way anyone is denied basic service through Medicaid." However, people are denied Medicaid, and those who need "basic service" more frequently than others or need more than "basic service" have to pay out of pocket for more services even if they have Medicaid. Many people enroll in Medicaid because they can't afford other health insurance providers.

Calling people sexist isn't the most effective way of getting them to see your point of view or change their minds. However, Mike raises a good question: "What do you think Texas will do when faced with the children born because of lack of services? Or women facing advanced cancer because of the same?" "Do you think that men should lose access to viagra?" is, in my opinion, a valid question. If men's reproductive health isn't denied to men at any medical institution, why are so many reproductive health services denied to women?

You can appeal, but that doesn't guarantee that your appeal will be granted. There isn't a place in every town where you can get a free pap smear or mammogram, by the way. Pap smears out of pocket can cost at least $60. That's just the cost of the test, not the appointment. I don't really know why Kevin asked Mike if he'd rather let people die, maybe a deleted comment in there somewhere, but more women will die trying to self-abort or by not having access to a place that provides pap smears, mammograms, contraceptives, and STI testing if all 34 Planned Parenthoods in Texas get shut down.

Correct, you have no say in anyone's right to pursue an abortion. Actually, there is more than one good reason for Planned Parenthood to exist! Service-wise, they provide family planning counseling, pregnancy counseling, educational materials for public schools, STI testing, contraceptive information and insertions, and more. The services they provide literally do cover the poorest of the poor. Planned Parenthoods are up-front about costs of services and help you find ways to finance your use of their services. Why is it a bad thing to have services covered both by Planned Parenthood and other institutions? 

There is such a thing as having a sexist attitude when talking about getting rid of a medical institution that is almost exclusively used by women. Planned Parenthood is an affordable, federal-government-funded organization that provides screenings and other services. Who else are you referring to? And to what extent are the cancer screenings like pap smears "affordable"? Affordable as in a woman working a minimum wage job can afford to take a half-day off work to go to the doctor?

Insurance like Medicaid is not the person that performs those services, though. Doctors perform medical services. There aren't a lot of options for people with low incomes when it comes to finding health care providers that won't nickel-and-dime them.

You lose 34 health centers by losing Planned Parenthood. That's a lot. What is gained by keeping a federal entity when its services can also be given by another entity is that there is less overcrowding at other hospitals and clinics, there is more space for doctors to practice in, more doctors offices closer to the places that people live and work, and more time slots available for appointments.

16% of Texas residents are uninsured.

Texas has the second largest population in the US. California has the largest population, but only 8% of California's population is uninsured.

She doesn't know English? That's a rude assumption to make.

Ultimately, I don't think there was a winner in the comments. If you look at comments on the Facebook posting for the article, many people recognize that taking away Planned Parenthood in Texas does no good for women's health. Kevin is among those who do not have much experience with needing but not having physical or financial access to reproductive health services, or having to jump through hoops to receive access to these services, and his comments show as much.

Many people get turned off by flagrant language and anger when talking about any social justice issues. That being said, it's hard to be a social justice supporter without a certain level of anger. The anger isn't unjustified.


My comment was more or less that there are 34 Planned Parenthoods in Texas, and only 5 of them actually perform abortions. Medicaid in Texas does not pay for abortions anyway. If the state government of Texas takes away patients' ability to pay for their health care services at Planned Parenthood with Medicaid, and only 5 out of 34 of the Planned Parenthoods provide abortions (and 9 do abortion referrals), then what the state is really doing is limiting women's access to reproductive health care, not just abortion. They are limiting women's ability to choose where they can get general and reproductive health care, and limiting their financial and physical access to it.