Last night, the District office of State Senator Wendy Davis was firebombed. A sole male assailant threw two molotov cocktails at the door of the office, which caused the damage seen at right. A staff member extinguished the fire. Read our coverage of the attack here.
For those of you not familiar with Wendy Davis, she is a crucial member of the Democratic Senate caucus.
Here's a quick primer on Wendy Davis, why she might have been the target of this attack, and how you can help her right now:
Davis' victory in 2008, ousting Republican Kim Brimer, gave the Democrats a 12th seat in the upper chamber. That's crucial, because the rules of the Senate -- specifically the two-thirds rule -- dictate that at least 21 of the 31 member body must vote to suspend the rules and pass legislation. Davis gave us a stalwart Democratic vote in a chamber where our members haven't always stuck together on crucial issues.
Davis is an unabashed champion for education and women's health. In the 2011 session, she filibustered the education bill until the clock ran out on the regular session, thus forcing Perry to call a special session. The Fort Worth Star-Telegramreported last Thursday that Texas Republicans have recently escalated their rhetorical attacks on Davis, "apparently for thinking Texas should rank higher than 49th in funding public schools." She is also a strong supporter of women's health and family planning, voted against the mandatory sonogram bill, and speaking out in favor of Planned Parenthood and against the state's efforts to shut down the provider.
Davis' SD-10 was the target of redistricting chicanery by the Republicans to draw her out of her district by gerrymandering the 10th until it was unwinnable by a Democrat. Davis prevailed in redistricting litigation, as all sides in the Senate map settled on a district very similar to the one in which she won with 49.91% of the vote. Her victory in the courts stemmed from proving that the Republican legislature intentionally fragmented the minority coalition that makes up her Fort Worth district, specifically to prevent a diverse community of Hispanic, African-American, and cross-over Anglo (i.e. White Democratic) voters from electing a Democrat.
SD-10 is the only competitive Senate race for the Democrats this year. It is the only potential loss, and the only Republican pick-up opportunity. Republicans would love to get rid of Wendy Davis, a rising star in the state, an Anglo female Democrat, an outspoken supporter of public education, an advocate for women's health.
These attacks on public servants are an outrage. No matter the party, no matter the ideological position, no elected official or their hard-working staff members should ever be the target of this kind of attack. Molotov cocktails are not an acceptable form of political speech in America.
What You Can Do To Help Wendy Davis:
1. Send a note of support to Davis and her staff. Her office staff will pass on your messages of support. You can email her at her Senate office at wendy.davis(at)senate.state.tx.us. Let's make sure they know we're incensed by this attack on a public servant, and that we appreciate all the good work Senator Davis does for the people of Texas.
2. Sign up to help her re-election race. Visit Davis's campaign website and sign up. This is going to be a very close race, and it's crucial for folks who can give their time do so to re-elect this important Democratic officeholder.
Let's show Senator Davis -- and those who perpetrate these awful attacks -- that we've got her back.
She's always stood up for our values, and now that her office has been the target of a attack, let's show her that we're still standing strong behind this stalwart Democratic leader.
Update 12:47 p.m. -- Thanks to everyone who was so generous in their support of Sen. Davis. A news update from the Statesman tells us that the suspect is a homeless man who had previously visited the office. We hope this wasn't a politically motivated attack.
In the meantime, you can visit Wendy Davis's website HERE.
As we reported on Monday, this week's strip of Doonesbury comics takes aim at the absurdity of Texas's mandatory sonogram law, which requires a transvaginal ultrasound of women seeking abortions in Texas. Tuesday and Wednesday's cartoons will be appreciated by Burnt Orange Report readers, as they stick it to the three middle-aged male Republicans responsible for this bill: Governor Rick Perry, State Senator Dan Patrick, and State Representative Sid Miller. The cartoons also bring in the ongoing Republican war on birth control, as the GOP wants to come between women and their monthly blister packs of pregnancy-prevention.
Here are Tuesday and Wednesday's strips:
TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY
Tuesday's panel, in which "Sid Patrick" (hmm, sounds like a mash-up of Sid Miller and Dan Patrick to me...) asks the young lady if her parents know she's "a slut," resonates strongly with the remarks made by Radio Blowhard Rush Limbaugh, in which he called Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute" for not only using birth control pills, but also having the audacity to speak up as a woman in favor of access to women's healthcare. More than 30% of American women who use contraception use The Pill. Looks like Rush just insulted one third of the country's ladies. Good work.
Additionally, 14% of pill-takers use them for non-contraceptive purposes including premenstrual dysphoric disorder, endometriosis, and controlling acne. Women also take the pill when they're prescribed other medications that have the risk of birth defects, to make sure they don't get pregnant. Thanks to the ongoing war by Texas Republicans on women's health and family planning programs, there are legions of women lining up to tell their stories about taking the pill for a variety of non-sexy reasons. In short, women take the pill for a whole lot of reasons, and it's none of our legislators' damn business why, nor is it their job to forbid us from receiving them.
Wednesday's panel takes direct aim at Rick Perry, who made sonogram legislation an "emergency item" to speed up the process by which it worked its way through the Republican legislature and into the vaginas of Texas. In his press release, Perry stated that the goal of the legislation was to make sure the "patient understands what's truly at stake" -- because, you know, most women seeking abortions have no idea that they're terminating a pregnancy.
Perry added that he hopes the sonograms compel women to make what he terms "the right choice" -- i.e. not to have the abortion. Of course, sonogram laws don't actually deter many women from having an abortion at all. The real key here is the 24-hour waiting period and procedural delays it causes women. Women need to take an extra day off from work, travel twice, pay for gas twice, pay for other childcare twice, all to exercise their legal right to an abortion. (Meanwhile, all of Perry's efforts to end women's health and family planning in Texas will only increase abortions, as a result of increasing unwanted pregnancies. Bitter irony!)
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran a story about the hardships of Texas women who now seek abortions under the sonogram law, and quoted two providers who described their patients' experiences with the law. (Ironically, the Post-Dispatch is one of the papers that refused to run the Doonesbury cartoon, since it wasn't "family friendly" enough.) From their article on the sonogram law, emphasis mine:
"What we have noticed primarily is absolute outrage that they have to come twice," [Amy Hagstrom Miller, CEO of Whole Women's Health] said. "Many of our clients are already mothers; they know what is on a sonogram. They don't see it and say 'Oh, my gosh, I'm pregnant' and change their minds."
"It treats women as if they are stupid and don't know what is in their uterus," [Jenni Beaver, assistant director at Southwestern Women's Surgery Center in Dallas] said. "The law just creates hoops and barriers and drives up the cost for the women. And we have not had anyone decide not to have an abortion because of a sonogram."
Beaver's comments above are accurate with other research on sonogram laws: they don't cause women to change their minds. However, the increased procedural hurdles -- waiting periods, added costs -- do deter some women from accessing abortion, and as always it's the low-income and rural women who will suffer the most.
Wednesday's comic ends as the resigned doctor reads the ideological claptrap required by the state. As far as the Legislature is concerned, doctors "cannot be trusted" to provide their patients with the necessary information about abortion and have to say what the government thinks is correct. It's a move that irked the American Medical Association, and it's a move that should send a clear message to Texas doctors and patients alike: when it comes to women's healthcare, the Republican legislature thinks only they know best.
This is BOR's Video of the Day, or VOTD, our nightly video clip segment that hopefully provides you with a laugh or a chance to think at the end of the day.
Today, Planned Parenthood wrapped up their statewide "Don't mess with Texas" bus tour, highlighting Rick Perry and the Republican legislature's efforts to defund family planning and women's health programs in Texas. Tonight's event was a huge success and we'll bring you coverage tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow, tomorrow is the last day for the Medicaid Women's Health Program in Texas. Rick Perry and the Republicans are so determined to cut Planned Parenthood out from the program, they're scrapping the whole thing. Perry even thinks he can find $35 million to pay for it all in-state. (As if!)
In all likelihood, as of Thursday, another 130,000 Texan women will lose access to basic care, joining the 180,000 Texan women who lost access due to budget cuts in the last Legislative session.
Tonight, our video is from Planned Parenthood, and features women's health providers explaining the impact of slashing these programs and ending Medicaid funding.
Check out all of our BOR videos of the day on the VOTD tag.
Congratulations, Republican lawmakers of Texas! Your sonogram law has hit the big-time: week-long ridicule in "Doonesbury." The 40-year daily cartoon strip that frequently takes aim at political and social issues will turn the light on the absurdity that is Texas's mandatory transvaginal ultrasound law, also known as the sonogram law.
Not surprisingly, a few daily papers are refusing to publish the cartoon, claiming that the illustrated rendition of an actual law in Texas is "too much" for the "family-friendly fun" of the cartoon page.
The plot of the series of strips features a woman seeking a sonogram in order to have an abortion. She's asked, "Do your parents know you're a slut?" Before inserting the probe, the doctor says to her, "By the authority invested in me by the GOP base, I thee rape." Later, a receptionist says, "The Republican Party is hoping you get caught in a shame spiral and change your mind."
Is it charged rhetoric? Sure. Does it accurately convey the intent of the Republican sonogram law, passed in Texas and percolating elsewhere across the country? Abso-friggin'-lutely.
Here's Monday's strip:
Quite naturally, a few weak-willed newspaper editors refused to run the strip that is, I note, based on an actual law and actual procedure women in Texas and elsewhere now have to endure to exercise their rights. The St. Paul Pioneer Press, Oregonian, and St. Louis Post-Dispatch have pulled the strips, among others.
The Post-Dispatchcredits aborting the strip to its "graphic language" and "unsuitable language" for a section with "young readers." Hey, editors, how else are we supposed to train young women for the lifetime of slut-shaming that awaits them? How else will your young female and male readers find out that Republicans view women as objects worthy of scorn at best, and beings incapable of making their own decisions without unwanted bodily penetration at worst?
The Oregoniansays comic Garry Trudeau "went over the line of good taste and humor." You know what's actually over the line? Forcing doctors to perform medically unnecessary sonograms and read ideological claptrap to their patients.
In an interview, Trudeau defended his use of the word "rape" to describe the sonogram law:
Texas's HB-15 isn't hard to explain: The bill says that in order for a woman to obtain a perfectly legal medical procedure, she is first compelled by law to endure a vaginal probe with a hard, plastic 10-inch wand. The World Health Organization defines rape as "physically forced or otherwise coerced penetration - even if slight - of the vulva or anus, using a penis, other body parts or an object." You tell me the difference.
The only difference I see is that the WHO hasn't adopted the 17th Century attitudes towards women that pervade the Texas Legislature.
Clearly succumbing to intense statewide and national pressure not to end the Women's Health Program in Texas, Rick Perry promised yesterday that he'd find the $35 million necessary to keep WHP going without Medicaid, while also barring Planned Parenthood from receiving any funds. Good luck with that!
In 2011 Rick Perry cut $15 billion from the state's budget, including $73.6 million from family planning alone, due to a massive budgetary shortfall. He can no longer plug the holes in the budget with the Federal stimulus funds he loves to accept and then campaign against. Now, rather than pay a mere $4 million to keep WHP going and in return receive approximately $35 million from the Feds, Perry says he's going to find that $35 million in state funds to keep the program going, while also cutting the largest service provider to low-income women in Texas.
According to CPPP, the $73 million in cuts by Perry and his Republican legislature to family planning funding resulted in 150,000 low-income women losing access to preventative care and family planning. If the Medicaid WHP program shuts down, another 114,000 women will lose access. That will result in an 80% decrease in the number of low-women in Texas who receive basic healthcare services.
Texans should be extremely skeptical of the political game Rick Perry is playing with women's health funding.
Let's look at the facts:
Our state is broke -- at the start of last session, there was a $27 billion projected budget shortfall. Things are so bad I always expect to see Comptroller Susan Combs panhandling at the corner of 11th and I-3.
The current Medicaid WHP program saves the state $231 million in Medicaid costs by preventing unwanted pregnancies.
Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of services under the Medicaid WHP -- they provide 44% of all services under the program. They're also one of the most cost-efficient providers.
Our other providers lack the capacity to handle what PP can't if they're excluded. The $73 million Perry slashed from the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) to support family planning caused many of the other providers to cut staff, reduce hours, or close outright.
Planned Parenthood's 65 health centers in Texas provide over 100,000 cervical cancer screenings, 120,000 breast cancer screenings, and 440,931 tests and treatments for sexually transmitted infections. Our other clinics simply can't handle this increased patient load.
Perry is only now promising to reinstate women's healthcare funding due to the tremendous public outcry over ending the Medicaid WHP program -- an outcry that is the work of Planned Parenthood and other partners that support providing low-income women with access to basic healthcare. His real goal is to defund and shut down Planned Parenthood. Initially the Legislature passed a law barring Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funds as part of the WHP -- however, that law was in direct violation of the Social Security Act, which makes clear that a state can't discriminate against any provider. There is clearly nothing medically wrong with Planned Parenthood's 65 health centers -- they still have all of their necessary licenses. This is a politically motivated effort by Perry to shut down the state's top provider of services to low-income women because they also support a woman's right to a safe, legal abortion.
Rick Perry is willing to unnecessarily balloon state spending on the women's health program in an attempt to drive one provider out of business. As taxpayers, we should all be outraged! Here we have a gaping budget hole, schools are closing, state workers are losing their jobs, and important programs are getting cut left and right. Meanwhile, Perry is smiting the one bright spot in our state's healthcare program -- the $9 in Federal funds we get for every $1 Texas spends on women's health and family planning, which in turn saves us $40 million in Texas taxpayer dollars and $231 million in Medicaid costs per year by preventing unwanted pregnancies.
The big irony here is that Perry's decision will actually INCREASE abortions. As CPPP explains, "by devastating family planning, the state will actually increase abortions. A state-only program would be a shadow of the program Texas has now, undermining the health care of women and children, costing taxpayers, and increasing abortions."
Helluva job, Perry! Now you've got to shake $35 million out of the couch cushions in your rental mansion in order to fund a sorry replacement for our excellent Medicaid Women's Health Program. Clearly Perry's feeling the heat from slashing 80% of low-income women's healthcare. Let's keep it up and see if we can't get him to back down from a state-run program and restore the Medicaid WHP, Planned Parenthood and all.
Today is International Women's Day. The purpose of the day is to mark the economic, political, and social achievements of women. It's hard not to mark the occasion without a hint of irony, as Republicans in Texas and across the country work tirelessly to roll back women's rights.
Republicans' foremost goal over the last year and a half, has been to take women back to what they must consider the "good old days" -- before safe, legal abortion; before widely accessible birth control; before prenatal testing; before we had control of our bodies and as a result control of our lives. Make no mistake -- Republicans want to make the "Second Sex" into a permanent second class.
Republicans hold hearings on our own private healthcare decisions, and don't bother to let any women speak up on the topic. Republicans force women to undergo unnecessary transvaginal probing, and force women's doctors to recite unnecessary ideological claptrap to their patients. Republicans slash 66% from the family planning budget, then decide if they can't exclude the largest provider of care within the Women's Health Program from receiving funds, they'll just shut down the entire program, no matter the cost in women's lives.
Today, on International Women's Day, there's no reason for women to be celebrating here in Texas -- our rights and our basic access to healthcare is under attack.
25% of Texas women are uninsured, the highest rate of uninsured women in the country.
Texas has the 3rd highest rate of cervical cancer in the country -- an easily diagnosed and treated disease if women have access to care.
In 2011, Rick Perry signed a budget that slashed funding for women's health by 66%, resulting in 180,000 women losing access to preventative care.
By banning Planned Parenthood from receiving funds through Medicare's Women's Health Program, Perry will cause another 130,000 women to lose access to basic care.
This program Republicans are eliminating saves the state $42 million a year by preventing unwanted pregnancies.
It sure is a great time to be a woman in Texas! Yee haw!
It's just as bad across the country. In 2011, states passed83 laws restricting access to abortion, due to the new wave of Republicans elected in 2010. States are banning abortion after 20 weeks, implementing procedural hurdles including mandatory sonograms and waiting periods, and banning private insurance plans from covering abortions -- talk about Big Government!
And it's just going to get worse for women before next year's International Women's Day.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, 430 abortion restrictions have been introduced in state legislatures just this year. And it's only March! Yet again I'm thankful the Texas legislature only meets every other year -- less chance to mess with Texas women.
Meanwhile, the Republican presidential candidates compete to see who can be more extreme in their opposition to women's health. Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich all want to defund Planned Parenthood, the leading provider of healthcare to low-income women; they support "personhood" amendments that make a fertilized egg equivalent to a person corporation; and all but Romney signed a pledge that they would only appoint anti-choice individuals to key governmental positions. Rick Santorum is by far the most extreme, opposing abortion even in the case of rape or incest, and supporting the rights of states to ban birth control, even amongst married couples. (Again with the Big Government!) He thinks that birth control harms women and society. And of course, none of them want insurance companies to provide a co-pay for said birth control, oh my heavens no!
Make no mistake: Republicans are trying to destroy women's access to basic healthcare, and limit our ability to use our reproductive rights. And they're doing it for political gain, regardless of the actual cost in human lives to women and their families.
Today, in honor of International Women's Day, Burnt Orange Report is devoting our coverage to the Republican War on Women. This is a war on women's access to healthcare, it's a war on access to basic reproductive services, it's an war on women's abilities to control our own bodies, and as a result our own lives.
Introducing Video of the Day, or VOTD, our nightly video clip segment that hopefully provides you with a laugh at the end of the day.
This weekend on Saturday Night Live, Amy Poehler joined Seth Meyers on Weekend Update to discuss last week's Republican hearing on reproductive rights and birth control. You may have heard about it: it only featured dudes. Here's the video:
"It seems like they have even less rhythm than we thought!"
Just goes to show that often humor can do more to prove a point than any well-crafted argument.
Not to be outdone by the troglodytes in the Texas legislature, Republicans in the Virginia and Iowa statehouses are pushing for women to be forced to receive a mandatory trans-vaginal sonogram before getting an abortion. It's no surprise to see the law being repeated in other states, given Republicans' national war on women. Furthermore, since efforts by the Center for Reproductive Rights to beat back the sonogram lawsuit in the courts have recently failed, anti-choice activists likely are trying to strike while the unwanted-mandatory-probing of women is hot.
Over at RH Reality Check, writer Andy Kopsa accurately terms the bills "state-sanctioned rape," since they force an unwanted object into the body of a woman even if she won't consent to the procedure. Kopsa asked the Virginia AG if the bill overturns the state's anti-rape statute, but has yet to receive a response. Arguably it's the State who fills the role of the rapist, since many doctors themselves do not want to perform the unnecessary procedure. The Virginia law has already passed the lower chamber and is headed for the Republican-controlled Senate, where it is also likely to pass. Kopsa reports that thankfully the Iowa State Senate is Democratic, and will likely kill the Iowa version of the bill, along with other anti-choice and anti-woman legislation up for consideration.
Meanwhile, as we previously reported here at BOR, Federal Judge Sam Sparks dismissed the lawsuit against the State's sonogram law, primarily due to a pending reversal from the 5th Circuit Court, where the rabidly anti-abortion Chief Judge Edith Jones already overturned Sparks' temporary restraining order blocking enforcement of the sonogram law. Sparks essentially said that while he could still side against the sonogram law on constitutional grounds, there was little hope of the plaintiffs prevailing when the State appealed. It goes without saying that conservative, anti-choice judges on our Circuit Courts appointed by Republican presidents are just waiting to uphold these mandatory sonogram laws.
The irony is that sonogram laws have not been proven to actually reduce the rate of abortion. The main challenges they present are economic and procedural. The 24-hour waiting period associated with the sonogram can cause logistical hurdles for women that must travel long distances or take days off from work in order to get to an abortion provider. In Texas, if women travel over 100 miles to get an abortion they can waive the 24 hour waiting period, but must still wait 2 hours, I suppose to "think it over." Most infuriatingly, women also must pony up the extra money for a sonogram they don't want and don't even have to look at once it's done. Abortions are already expensive, especially for low-income women. This just makes the financial hurdle even bigger.
At its core, the sonogram law is about embarrassing and shaming women for exercising their right to choose. It's about humiliating women and forcing them to submit to an unwanted vaginal probing before going through with a medical procedure that they've already thought about a great deal. These laws are fixated on making women feel bad about their choice, and allowing the state to literally and physically violate them for exercising their rights.
Republicans will never stop their insane intrusions into women's personal lives or women's bodies. Now they're trying to allow employers to restrict their employees' access to birth control on "moral grounds." Where does it end? The Republicans have literally forced their way into the vaginas of women in Texas via their mandatory sonograms, and soon those of women in Virginia as well. Even as their efforts to block birth control coverage, mandate sonograms, and chip away at every reproductive freedom women enjoy cause them to nose-dive in the polls, it seems that they just won't stop. Women literally have no business voting for candidates from the Republican party -- their sole priority seems to be taking away our reproductive rights and basic access to birth control.
The only way to keep Republicans out of our lady-business is to keep them out of office.
More on the Texas Sonogram Law on Burnt Orange Report:
Thanks to a ruling from the 5th Circuit and a request from Greg Abbot to expedite enforcement, Texas' wildly invasive sonogram law is going into effect. Women seeking abortions will be subject to a mandatory ultrasound and forced to look at the sonogram image, and their doctor will be required to read a bunch of medically unnecessary information about fetal development or risk losing their medical license. For women who are less than 10 weeks pregnant, that sonogram will be conducted with a trans-vaginal probe, seen at right.
The law took effect sooner than anticipated, since Attorney General Greg Abbott got permission for immediate enforcement after 5th Circuit Judge Edith Jones struck down Federal Judge Sam Sparks' temporary restraining order on the law. Usually there's a three-week waiting period before laws are enforced. Now the Department of Health Services is writing rules for enforcement of the new law.
Here's a run-down of what happened in the litigation and where anti-probers can go from here.
June 13, 2011: The initial lawsuit against the sonogram bill is filed in federal court, with plaintiffs seeking to prevent the law from going into effect on September 1, 2011. The lawsuit seeks a judgment that the mandatory sonogram law is unconstitutional and unenforceable in whole and/or in part.
August 30, 2011: Judge Sam Sparks issues a temporary restraining order, or TRO, blocking enforcement. Specifically, Sparks' ruling prohibits any enforcement of the provisions requiring the display of the ultrasound, the detailed description of the fetal image, and the audible heart auscultation of the fetus.
January 5, 2012: AG Greg Abbott appeals Sparks' injunction at the 5th Circuit court. The anti-sonogram side continued to argue that the sonograms and compelled speech by the doctors are not medically necessary, and that the State of Texas was trying to insert ideological speech into the doctor-patient relationship.
January 10, 2012: Chief Judge Edith Jones, noted anti-abortion zealot, reversed Spark's TRO and stated that there's precedent for the new Texas law. That gave pause to opponents of the law, since any appeal of Sparks' final decision would have to go back through the 5th Circuit.
January 13, 2012: Abbott gets permission to enforce the sonogram law immediately, rather than wait the usual 3 weeks for the provision to take effect. The 5th Circuit granted his request, thus denying the anti-sonogram side the opportunity to appeal Jones' decision to reverse Sparks' injunction. The Texas Department of State Health Services was instructed to issue rules for compliance with the law, as well as prosecute doctors who do not obey it.
January 20, 2012: At a hearing on the initial lawsuit, Judge Sparks says his "hands are tied" by the 5th Circuit's reversal of his original TRO. Essentially, if Sparks rules for the plaintiffs, Jones is likely to reverse him when the State appeals his decision.
Now What? The best chance for opponents of the invasive sonogram law is for Sparks to rule against the law on constitutional grounds, and then have the ensuing appeal by the state take place en banc, or to the entire 5th Circuit, not just a three-judge panel including the dreaded anti-choice Judge Jones. A majority of the 17 judges on the 5th Circuit would have to agree to rehear it, and then could potentially reverse Judge Jones. Not all 17 would have to hear the case. Or at least that's my understanding. Other Circuit courts have ruled against similar laws, so there's a solid chance that a wider group of judges ruling on our sonogram law at the 5th Circuit might produce a different outcome.
Conceivably if Sparks does rule, and then the losing side appeals to the 5th Circuit, the losing side there can appeal to the Supreme Court. It's not clear however if the SCOTUS would take up the case, and given the current ideological swing of the court to the right thanks to George W. Bush's appointments, how the anti-sonogram side would fare.
So that's where we are. We'll keep you updated on this issue as it continues.
January is Cervical Awareness Month. I'm sure you've heard all about this, what with the parades and the TV specials and everyone wearing teal ribbons all over the place.
Why should you care? Because the cervix is yet another battlefield in the Republican Party's war on women. Positioned between the vagina and the uterus -- two body parts that aging white male Republicans always seem most eager to want to legislate control of -- the cervix is literally in the middle of the debate over women's health.
Thanks to the Republican Party and their draconian cuts to women's health and family planning services, next year's Cervical Awareness Month will celebrate a lot fewer healthy Texas cervixes.
And as the Republican Legislature's efforts continue to close Planned Parenthood clinics and curtail funding to health centers that perform pap smears, we should see the incidence of and death from cervical cancers rise, and watch our overall healthcare costs increase as well. So let's talk about cervical cancer, and why the Republican legislature's policies will increase the number of women who die from this thoroughly preventable, treatable disease.
Here in America, cervical cancer is the 8th most common cancer of women. Approximately 11,000 new cases are diagnosed each year, and an estimated 3,800 women are expected to die of the disease. Thankfully, here in the US our mortality rate is much less than the rest of the world, due in part to widespread Pap smear testing.
Pap smear screening every 3-5 years with appropriate follow-up can reduce the rate of cervical cancer by up to 80%. Pap smears are recommended for women beginning at age 21, or three years after a woman becomes sexually active, whichever is earlier. In 2010, Planned Parenthood performed 769,769 pap smears nationwide. (They also provided 747,607 breast exams but hey, it's not breast cancer awareness month yet, now is it?!) They also provided over 44,000 treatment procedures for women with abnormal pap smear results. It's all part of the 14.5% of Planned Parenthood's national work that consists of cancer screening and cancer prevention. Here in Texas, PP screened 104,000 women for cervical cancer in 2010. Over 13,000 pap tests were abnormal.
Between 2 and 3 million women have an abnormal pap smear every year. It's very common, as is the human papilloma virus that causes it. Yes, HPV. More on that later. Ask around at your next ladies night and you should find a few women who admit to an abnormal pap smear. For 90% of women, the abnormalities clear up within a year, especially in younger (under 30) women. Meanwhile, if you want to read more about abnormal pap smears, The Hairpin has a really helpful guide with a very cute cartoon.
70% of cervical cancer is caused by HPV. HPV vaccines reduce the risk of cancerous or precancerous changes of the cervix by about 93%. The fact is, the HPV vaccine that's so often bandied about as a political football would go a long way to reduce this disease. While Rick Perry is routinely excoriated for his failed mandate that all girls in sixth grade and above be vaccinated against HPV, the policy would have gone a long way to lower the incidence of cervical cancer. Of course, a whiff of cronyism surrounds the decision since Perry's former Chief of Staff Mike Toomey was a lobbyist for Merck at the time Perry signed the executive order. The mandated vaccine would have generated millions in revenue for the pharmaceutical giant. The policy had flaws, but with some adjustments, such as parents having the choice to opt out, and male children being vaccinated as well, it could have been a great public policy initiative.
Hispanic women have a cervical cancer incidence that is 50% higher than that of the general population. African-American women also have a higher rate. Poor White people also have a higher incidence than non-poor White people. According to the National Cancer Institute, this statistical disproportionality is due to lack of access to health care and low socio-economic status. So here in Texas, where we have a majority-minority population and some of the highest rates of poverty in the country, we're facing a greater risk of exploding cervical cancer rates if we slash family planning funds. Planned Parenthood and other clinics that the state has put on the chopping block serve an overwhelmingly low-income population.
In their attempts to slash funding from Planned Parenthood and women's health centers, Republicans are making sure that less women can access pap smears and get the early detection they need to avoid cervical cancer. Early diagnosis and treatment are vital to short- and long-term survival. The longer the cancer goes undetected and untreated, the worse the survival rates are. 80-90% of women with Stage I cancer survive five years after diagnosis; only 15% of those diagnosed with Stage IV cancer make it that long. It's worth repeating: the majority of cervical cancers in the US occur in women who haven't been screened in the last five years. That's why making sure these services are prevalent and affordable -- such that more women can get pap smears more frequently -- is so key to keeping the diagnosis and mortality rate down.
It's not just Planned Parenthood that is suffering -- Republicans slashed funding to most family planning clinics, including the federally qualified health centers they so love to prop up as an alternative to PP. Those FQHC's are already overburdened with patients, and in a state as big -- and as rapidly-growing -- as Texas, we need more outlets for low-cost women's healthcare, not less. Last biennium, 71 clinics received state funding. Now, that number is down to 41. Family planning funds used to serve 220,000 women a year. Now, that number is down to 60,000. The cuts in funding represent a drastic decrease in care, which in turn will mean more missed pap smears and more advanced diagnoses of cervical cancer.
In developing nations, cervical cancer is a leading killer of women, because these populations lack the early detection necessary to stop the disease in its tracks. Texas Republicans are enacting policies that threaten to bring our own women back to that same low level of detection, treatment, and survival. It's shameful!
For a political party that routinely abuses the phrase "pro-life," Republicans are doing everything in their power to systematically increase the number of women that die from or have their lives greatly shortened by cervical cancer.
But hey, on the upside, maybe during the next session Republicans can re-name January as "Systematic-Denial-of-Pap-Smears-to-Women,-Especially-Poor-Women,-Thus-Increasing-the-Odds-That-They-Die Awareness Month." It'd be more honest, right?
Not to be outdone by the troglodytes in the Texas legislature, Republicans in the Virginia and Iowa statehouses are pushing for women to be forced to receive a mandatory trans-vaginal sonogram before getting an abortion. It's no surprise to see the law being repeated in other states, given Republicans' national war on women. Furthermore, since efforts by the Center for Reproductive Rights to beat back the sonogram lawsuit in the courts have recently failed, anti-choice activists likely are trying to strike while the unwanted-mandatory-probing of women is hot.
