The
Indiana State Legislature recently passed bill HB 1210, which would
prevent organizations within the state that perform abortions from
receiving state-allocated federal funding. Indiana Governor Mitch
Daniels (R), who has supported the bill from its outset, has said he
will sign the bill into law. Most affected by the bill, and indeed
its intended target, will be Planned Parenthood of Indiana, which
stands to lose $3
million in funding. (AP, April 27)
Betty
Cockrum, president and CEO of PPIN, has spoken out strongly against
the bill: “The
decision to sign HB 1210 into law is unconscionable and unspeakable.
…
As
many as 22,000 low-income Hoosiers will lose their medical home.”
Supporters
of the bill claim that they do not want state tax dollars to be spent
on organizations that perform abortions. Abortion is a legal
procedure in the United States, and winning women’s right to choose
took a long, hard struggle. Even so, abortions account for just 3
percent of the services PPIN provides. According to the PPIN website:
“The government funding in question is about prevention. None of it
supports abortion. Not a penny. It pays for basic health care
services such as Pap tests that screen for cancer, breast exams, STD
testing and treatment and birth control.”
PPIN
primarily serves low-income women who have few other choices for
health care. Many of these women use Medicaid to pay for services
they receive from PPIN. HB 1210’s attempt to stop Medicaid funding
from reaching these women could prevent the bill from being passed.
According
to the Family and Social Services Administration, “Federal law
requires state Medicaid plans provide any eligible individual medical
assistance and that they can obtain such assistance from any
institution, agency, community pharmacy, or person, qualified to
perform the service(s) required.”
This means that the legislation cannot legally stop Medicaid payments
to PPIN because they perform abortions. The bill will also meet stiff
resistance from PPIN itself, which plans to file an injunction to
stop the bill before it is signed into law.
Supporters
of the bill claim that the legislation will not affect access to
quality care for Indiana’s families, because funds diverted from
Planned Parenthood will be given to other providers. However, their
statements on the topic are revealing.
When
asked about these providers, State Senator Scott Schneider, a
supporter of the bill, said: “We didn’t do a comprehensive
evaluation of all of the [providers]. … They offer family planning
and women’s health services. It includes a lot of things. I’m not
sure if they offer the same services as Planned Parenthood. I’m not
intimately familiar with what [Planned Parenthood] offer[s].”
Clearly
the legislative supporters of the bill have not fully considered and
are ignorant of the potentially devastating effects on their
constituents.
Signing
of the bill will also be a shameless move by Gov. Daniels to obtain
the support of the extreme right for a prospective presidential run
in 2012. Pursuit of these ambitions will come at the cost of the
health and financial well-being of thousands of Indiana’s citizens.
This
bill is clearly a move from the anti-woman, anti-choice right
masquerading as budget cutting. The capitalists can always find money
for their wars and bailouts, but when it comes to valuing the health
of their citizens they insist that the nation is broke and that we
the people need to make sacrifices. We must protest this bill and
others like it in states across the United States.
Solidarity with the people of Indiana!
