HFA: Action for Women's Healthcare

On April 19, members and friends of the Healthy Futures Alliance (HFA) gathered at the Barbara Jordan Center to discuss Texas' crisis in women's healthcare and our policy agenda to address it. Coalition members reaffirmed their support for maximizing access to preventive care and birth control, as well as for promoting evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention programs. (You can view the presentation that was discussed at the Healthy Futures website.)

HFA is concerned about the crisis because half of pregnancies are unplanned, and the rates have been increasing among low-income women. Unplanned pregnancy carries high risks of premature birth, child abuse and neglect, maternal and child health problems, single parenthood, and economic disadvantage. Unplanned pregnancy is also expensive, with Texas Medicaid births costing taxpayers nearly $1.3 billion per year.    

The 2011 Texas Legislature cut the Department of State Health Services Family Planning program by 66% (a $73 million cut), causing at least 150,000 low-income women to lose access to the preventive care and birth control (not abortion) provided by the program.  

In addition, the Texas Women's Health Program (WHP) is threatened. WHP provides preventive care, screenings, and birth control (not abortion) to an additional 130,000 women each year. The 2011 Texas Legislature excluded "affiliates" of abortion providers from the program, barring Planned Parenthood clinics from participating.  

Federal Medicaid law does not allow exclusion of willing providers, so the federal government will withdraw its funding ($9 of every $10 spent in the program). Texas plans to continue WHP without federal support, and without Planned Parenthood clinics, which have provided about 44% of WHP services.  

Few private-practice physicians have participated in WHP, and Federally Qualified Health Centers are unable to care for more patients. Non-Planned Parenthood family planning clinics around the state have downsized because of the recent budget cuts. Without Planned Parenthood clinics, there are not enough providers to meet the huge need for services.  

Planned Parenthood clinics have sued in federal court to stop their exclusion, and the state has indicated it will stop WHP altogether if Planned Parenthood prevails.   

HFA's concern is that low-income women have access to preventive care and contraception, which is essential to prevent unplanned pregnancies. The HFA coalition seeks restoration of funding for the DSHS Family Planning program. HFA also wants WHP to continue with sufficient providers to serve the need.  

HFA's commitment is to promoting what works for prevention, including contraception. The coalition has some members who describe themselves as "pro-life" and others who identify themselves as "pro-choice", but all are working together to prevent teen and unplanned pregnancy. Our focus is on prevention, before an unplanned pregnancy occurs.  

HFA is not Planned Parenthood. However, our coalition supports the preventive care that Planned Parenthood clinics and others provide. Our concern is that Texas has enough care providers to serve its 1.4 million low-income women in need of contraceptive services. 

HFA is working to make our community one with prepared parents, planned pregnancies, and healthy families. This means we will need Texas to be a state where all have access to the preventive care that helps them avoid unplanned pregnancy.

National Day Press Conference: Wed. May 2, 10 AM 

Wednesday May 2 is the National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy! To mark this important day, Project WORTH, Metro Health's teen pregnancy prevention program, is hosting a Press Conference at 10 AM in the Auditorium of the Central Library:

National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy

Press Conference

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

10:00 AM to 11:00 AM

San Antonio Central Library

Auditorium

600 Soledad St. 78205

Please join the ME NOW...baby later Teen Ambassadors, along with Healthy Futures of Texas, UT Teen Health, the San Antonio Public Library, and Girls, Inc. to learn about the latest data on teen childbearing in our community. San Antonio and Bexar County teens have made great progress in reducing their rates of teen pregnancy and birth, and the National Day is a perfect time to hear about the latest statistics.  

View the invitation here. Please call 210-207-8850 to RSVP.

Access to Contraception: a Proven Policy Solution

Expanding access to publicly funded family planning services is the most cost-effective way to reduce unplanned pregnancy while saving taxpayer dollars, according to a recent report.  Along with evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention programs and well-designed mass media campaigns, expanding access to preventive care and birth control are proven policy solutions.  

Adam Thomas of the Brookings Institution reviews the situation and the evidence. Almost half of U.S. pregnancies are unplanned, with high risks of many negative outcomes for the women and children involved. Rates are much higher for pregnancies among single women (7 in 10 unplanned), teens (8 in 10 unplanned) and poor women (6 in 10 unplanned).  

There is strong evidence that expanding access to Medicaid-funded family planning (i.e., preventive care and birth control, not abortion) can affect rates of contraceptive use and unplanned childbearing.  

In addition, well-designed media campaigns can persuade some young women and men to avoid unprotected sex. Most of the campaigns found to be effective encourage condom use. Sexual health education for teens is effective in delaying sexual "debut" and reducing unprotected sex when evidence-based programs are used. Most of these effective programs emphasize abstinence, but also promote condom and contraceptive use. One abstinence-only program has been found to be effective among 6th and 7th grade students.   

Thomas calls these measures "public policy trifectas: they generate taxpayer savings, they improve the lives of children and families, and they reduce the incidence of abortion."

Unfortunately, Texas' policy changes are going in the opposite direction, compared to these proven policy solutions. Texas has recently endangered its successful Medicaid family planning expansion, the Women's Health Program (see article, above). This is occurring in addition to gutting the other federal funding sources for women's preventive healthcare in our state.