Texas Doesn't Care If You Have Cancer In Your Ladyparts

Now that the "pro-life" Republicans of Texas have saved women from access to abortion, for their own safety, by shutting down almost all of the state's clinics, they're ready to solve the next problem:  too much access to cancer screenings. 

In an effort to boot Planned Parenthood from the cancer program, lawmakers wrote a provision into the state budget to prohibit clinics affiliated with abortion providers from receiving funding for breast and cervical cancer screenings. Under state law, the 17 Planned Parenthood clinics participating in the program were already prohibited from performing abortions if they accepted taxpayer dollars.

See, Texas has this Breast and Cervical Cancer Services program, which provides screening for low-income women, so doctors can catch cancer early and women won't die from it. Seems pro-lifey, no? While the state has already prohibited clinics that provide abortions from participating in the program, that's not enough. The state really, REALLY does not want its precious tax dollars to go to any healthcare provider who can even spell "abortion." Even though the program is mostly funded with federal dollars, and the last time Texas decided to restrict participation in its state program, it ended up losing a whole bunch of federal money, which was real smart and fiscally conservative, not that it matters, because at Texas "pro-lifers" got to stick it to Planned Parenthood real good:

The Republican-led Legislature in 2011 slashed the state’s budget for family planning by two-thirds in an effort to keep health providers even loosely affiliated with abortion providers, namely Planned Parenthood, from receiving state tax dollars.

Ejecting Planned Parenthood from the joint state-federal Medicaid Women’s Health Program cost the state a $9-to-$1 match from the federal government. That forced state health officials to relaunch the program as the state-financed Texas Women’s Health Program to keep Planned Parenthood out.

While there are plenty of Planned Parenthood clinics that do not provide abortion, this new provision would prohibit those clinics as well from participating in the program because boo hiss, Planned Parenthood. And boo hiss, ladyparts cancer, because any good "pro-lifer" will tell you women only get diseases in their boobies and sex holes from using birth control and having 'bortions and doing naughty unwedlocked fucking, and maybe from walking through the doors of Planned Parenthood, so really, this only hurts dirty godless whores anyway, and who cares about them?

Fortunately, Texas women have Gov. Greg Abbott, who earlier this month said "the State of Texas will continue to fight for higher-quality healthcare standards for women," so of course he opposes any bill that would reduce -- aw, hell, can't even finish pretending Abbott gives a crap about women's healthcare. Of course he supports this provision! He only cares about those "higher-quality" standards when they're used to shut down abortion clinics, duh.

So, with this new provision, even fewer women will have access to affordable cancer screenings, but that doesn't even matter, because as former Gov. Rick Perry recently explained, the state passed tort reform one time, plus there are a lot of doctors there, so whether Texans actually have access to healthcare isn't how you "keep score" anyway.

[ HuffPo ]