Planned Parenthood Shutdowns Are Making A Low-Income Mother’s Life Even Harder

Despite Planned Parenthood’s efforts to provide rape counseling and sex education to kids, the organization continues to get vilified as nothing short of drug pushers that get teens hooked on the “gateway drug” of masturbation. But regardless of whether you think kids learning about sex from Planned Parenthood is appropriate, a series of fevered anti-abortion-incentivized cuts are currently making the lives of mothers very difficult in Texas. In the city of San Carlos, four out of eight clinics have been shut down down due to budget cuts — and those clinics don’t even offer abortions.

Because of these shutdowns, many mothers can no longer obtain birth control pills, have breast cancer screenings, or pap smears.  And even though there is another clinic 16 miles away from San Carlos, these ladies don’t exactly have the time or the resources to get there. The New York Times reports:

Many San Carlos patients struggle to reach Edinburg from their homes in impoverished neighborhoods called colonias. Maria Romero, a housecleaner with four children, who had a lump in her breast discovered at the San Carlos clinic, has no way to get there.

Ms. Parra, 33, the mother of five, managed to borrow a car to get to Edinburg after a pap smear at the San Carlos clinic indicated she might have cervical cancer. Further tests showed she was cancer-free.

Both women worry about getting birth control pills; the clinic may now have to charge them up to $20 for a month’s supply.

”I will have to go without,” Ms. Parra said as she left an English class at a community center and was walking to pick up her two youngest children from a Head Start program. ”If I get pregnant again, God forbid.”

While access to proper health care is a concerning issue on all it’s own, there is also how much all these unintended pregnancies (which could be prevented with access to contraception) are going to cost us, and I don’t mean financially. The Times estimates that financing family planning services prevents 400,000 abortions a year, which should concern both pro-choice and pro-life circles. Experts also maintain “that every dollar spent on family planning saves about $4 in maternity and infant care.”

For mothers who are struggling so hard already to keep their families afloat, many must now neglect their own personal health in addition to those sacrifices. And all the while, they are leaving both themselves and their families vulnerable to chance.

(photo: casadefrias.com)