According to the Lozier Institute, women can access comprehensive health care at community-based clinics, but Planned Parenthood is primarily focused on abortion.
(NCR) According to a recently published report, even if a proposal to defund Planned Parenthood passed and all of its facilities closed, women across the country would continue to have access to affordable health care services.
If Congress successfully stops federal funding from going to Planned Parenthood, the abortion provider said, as many as 200 of its facilities may be forced to close. A fundraising plea on its website warns that women’s health will be compromised due to decreased access to services.
However, a study conducted by the Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI) mapped women’s health providers across the U.S. and found that there are 15 community health centers for every one Planned Parenthood facility.
The key difference between these health clinics and Planned Parenthood’s centers are the services they offer, according to Tessa Cox, senior research associate at CLI. She said that women can access comprehensive health care at community-based clinics, but Planned Parenthood is primarily focused on abortion.
“The fact that there is this whole other universe of providers that women can go to that aren't focused on abortion, that are focused on the actual health care that women need is really encouraging,” Cox told the Register.
“If you look at all of the services that Planned Parenthood offers that are specific to women who are looking for help with their pregnancy, whether that be abortion, adoption referrals, miscarriage care, or prenatal care, abortion represents nearly 97% of that. So it’s a huge part of what they do,” Cox added.
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CLI notes that the figure of 97% was obtained from data presented in Planned Parenthood’s 2022-23 annual report. According to the analysis, Planned Parenthood patients received “prenatal services, miscarriage care, or adoption referrals 3% of the time.”
The version of the budget reconciliation bill that passed the U.S. Senate Tuesday (July 1) includes a provision that would end state Medicaid payments to nonprofits that perform abortions and received more than $800,000 in federal funding in 2023. Planned Parenthood receives well over that threshold, having taken in more than $792 million in government grants and payments that year, according to its annual report.
The House, which is expected to soon vote on the bill, had passed a version that had called for ending funding to such nonprofits for 10 years. Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said the passage of the provision was still a victory for the pro-life cause.
“Today, Congress took a major step toward ending the forced taxpayer funding of the Big Abortion industry — a crucial victory in the fight against abortion, America’s leading cause of death, and an industry that endangers women and girls,” Dannenfelser said in a statement that also referred to CLI’s study.
“Women deserve real health care options like community health centers that outnumber Planned Parenthood 15 to 1 and provide far more comprehensive, life-affirming care,” she said.
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In conducting the analysis, CLI created a list of Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and Rural Health Clinics (RHC) that offer out-patient health care to low-income and underserved populations. FQHCs are funded by the Health Services and Resources Administration and offer health care to needy patients on a sliding scale. RHCs serve people living in rural areas with limited access to health care and receive their funding from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
They then contacted each clinic to confirm that its services were available to the public at large, and that it offered women’s health care, such as OB-GYN care and family planning.
“The reason that we focused on both the federally qualified health centers and the rural health clinics is that these are clinics that are located in underserved areas. They exist to meet the needs of communities that might otherwise have trouble getting health care,” Cox said.
CLI found that there are an estimated 5,500 FQHC sites offering comprehensive health care to low-income women as well as 3,300 rural health clinic sites. By comparison, there are only 579 brick-and-mortar and virtual Planned Parenthood locations.
A number of Planned Parenthood centers have closed in recent months, following the Trump administration’s freezing of Title X Funds. On Tuesday, Planned Parenthood announced that its Cleveland location was the latest to close its doors.
According to CLI, women who live in Cleveland will continue to have access to affordable health clinics. A map of women’s centers, provided by CLI, showed that in Ohio there are 202 community health centers in the state that offer women’s health care, compared to 21 Planned Parenthood locations.
Planned Parenthood did not respond to a request for comment by time of publication. In a statement posted on its website, Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said that the facilities provide essential services other than abortion.
The statement reads: “By targeting Planned Parenthood health centers, this legislation will cause particular harm to patients living in remote or rural areas who already travel far distances to get the essential health care they need. Stripping these communities of access to affordable health services like birth control, STI testing, and cancer screenings is not just bad policy — it’s reckless and will worsen the country’s already broken health care system.”
Editor's note: Reprinted with permission from the National Catholic Register – www.ncregister.com.
