If you aren’t paying close attention, it’s easy to think that the Trump administration has accomplished very little legislatively since January 2017. But that’s not entirely true. While passing the Republican tax bill and the appointment of a Supreme Court justice are two of the higher profile things they’ve done, they have also consistently and quietly rolled back a number of Obama era rules that protect pay equity for women, sexual assault survivors on college campuses, students of color and other vulnerable populations.
In their ongoing efforts to completely take away reproductive autonomy from women, they are at it again—this time by allowing states to take public funds from community health centers and other organizations that provide family planning services. Though this was policy that the administration enacted back in April 2017, Nebraska is getting dangerously close to making this policy a reality, which could result in the closure of Planned Parenthood and other clinics around the state.
According to a Think Progress report:
The Nebraska Legislature advanced a budget bill Tuesday evening that includes language that would deny Planned Parenthood and other local family planning clinics public funds. In a 38-6 vote, lawmakers voted to block federal Title X funding to clinics that perform, counsel, or refer abortion services. [...]
Tuesday’s was the first of three votes, and should lawmakers advance a state budget that includes restrictive changes to the Title X grant requirements, funds for many clinics — not just Planned Parenthood — are at risk. One lawmaker, Democratic Sen. Kate Bolz, tried to amend the referral language in the budget bill because, for example, it could make community health centers ineligible for public funds. She withdrew the amendment at the last minute in the hopes of a compromise in the next round of debate.
Should this bill become law, it would mean that women would not only not have access to abortions, but they’d also be unable to obtain basic services related to their reproductive health such as birth control, well woman exams and prenatal care. But this will not just impact women. Planned Parenthood, for example, offers a variety of services to men, transgender and gender non-confirming persons as well. And only a small fraction of their services are related to abortion. This will harm the health and well-being of many Nebraskans. Of course, that doesn’t matter to Republicans. For decades they’ve been waging a zealous anti-abortion crusade and have looked for any methods to achieve their objective—making sure that women are denied what has been a constitutional right (the right to privacy, and, therefore, the right to make a private decision to have an abortion if they so choose) since 1973.
Two states, Iowa and Arizona, have already done the work to legally ensure that abortion providers cannot receive state dollars or Medicaid. But these kind of policies do nothing to encourage safe sex or thoughtfulness about pregnancy and family planning. Instead, they only force people into having children that they may not want or be prepared for. Think Progress states:
The clearest example of how harmful these political tactics can be for patients is in Texas, where exclusion meant many forwent birth control coverage, and as such, Medicaid-funded births skyrocketed.
Lawmakers around the country claim that this is a way to honor and preserve life and is meant to reflect pro-life values. But just whose lives exactly are they trying to preserve? When you look at the overall funding and policies of these states, many of them have also cut social services that are designed to help poor women and children. This is nothing if not pure hypocrisy. Claiming to care about the lives of children (unborn and living) but then doing everything you can to make sure that they are forcibly brought into a society that is inherently unequal, unsafe and does not protect their health and well-being or that of their mothers is not actually pro-life at all.
In Nebraska, apparently Republicans believe that only the lives of fetuses and men are worth protecting.
Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) first proposed Nebraska’s Title X eligibility changes, saying it’s meant to reflect the state’s “pro-life” values. Advocates have since gone to protest at the state legislature, including one mother-daughter duo named Jann and Chelsea, respectively. Chelsea is a sexual assault survivor and used Planned Parenthood’s services for her screenings afterwards. The mother and daughter confronted state Sen. Robert Hilkemann (R), who had insisted that no one’s health care would be jeopardized on Tuesday before the budget vote. Hours later, Hilkemann voted to advance the budget bill.
This is exactly why so many women (and, frankly, anyone with good sense) knew to fear a Donald Trump presidency. And while Trump won the majority of white women’s votes, he did not win the votes of women of color, young women and single women. We knew this was exactly the kind of thing that would happen under a Trump presidency, especially after he suggested that women should face some kind of punishment for seeking abortions. We knew to take it seriously. And, clearly, he meant it. Denying funding to health care clinics for family planning in the name of restricting abortion is not just a punishment for being a woman and making your own reproductive choices—it is the ultimate cruelty from a man who is a lifelong misogynist. And this is what happens when lifelong misogynists get control of local, state, federal government and the White House.