Reproductive Politics

The Planned Parenthood Action Fund (PPAF) was more effective in spending its money and getting positive results than any other political action group in the 2012 election. "Over 98 percent of its spending was in races that ended in the desired result, according to an analysis by the Sunlight Foundation" ( Washington Post ). One might conclude that they were effective because the election swung to the Democrats in many key races and that Planned Parenthood money was simply chasing winners. Sarah Kliff of The Washington Post , who analyzed how and why PPAF used its money and resources, instead concludes that Planned Parenthood actually moved the meter in races, one example being John Tester's unexpected reelection to the U.S. Senate from Montana. If you accept Kliff's analysis, one of the reasons why there was such a tremendous gender gap this election cycle is that PPAF saw that reproductive politics issues were registering as important for women (particularly aft...

This post is the first of a two-part discussion on how abortion services are provided in the United States and how that model might be improved. The right of abortion in the United States is a 'negative' right: A government's power to prevent a woman from obtaining an abortion is limited. Put another way, the right of abortion in the United States is a right of government non-interference. It is not, however, a right to  abortion: Governments are not required to help women obtain  abortions, only stay out of the way. It falls on individual women, civic groups, and the market to determine how easy or difficult it is for women in practice  to access abortion services. Since Roe v. Wade  in 1973, pro-choice activists, journalists, and scholars have noted that abortion access has been spotty, in particular for poor women and women who live in rural areas. A long-standing topic of discussion in the pro-choice community is how to improve access. In recent years on...

The fighting over funding Planned Parenthood continues. In an earlier post, I observed that these fights over taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood are being won less over grand constitutional principles and more on legislative and regulatory arguments. In this case, Planned Parenthood in Texas is attacking the state ban (on federal funds going to organizations that provide abortions) on two fronts. First, they have filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the ban violates the free speech rights of Planned Parenthood. The case is going to go to trial in federal court but Planned Parenthood lost its request to have a temporary injunction on the funding ban while the trial goes on. Second, Planned Parenthood argues that a provision of Texas's administrative code prevents the state from doing anything that costs the state federal funds: Under the Texas Human Resources Code, which governs the women’s health program, any provision is “inoperative if it causes Texas to lose feder...

Pro-life groups like Live Action love to charge Planned Parenthood with lying when it comes to whether the organization provides women with mammograms. Does Planned Parenthood provide mammograms? The literal answer appears to be "no," they do not. That being said, Planned Parenthood provides a) many breast exams a year (according to The Hill , 750,000), and b) referrals to organizations that do provide mammograms, much like many basic health care organizations. As with negative political advertising, then, the activists attacking Planned Parenthood are indulging in myopia, which allows them to focus on something that is literally true while failing to see the bigger and more relevant picture. The larger and more relevant picture in this case is that Planned Parenthood provides, among other preventative and primary care, access to breast exams and mammograms for women. If those women are poor and in areas (like in rural Texas) where Planned Parenthood is one of the only p...

An Indiana law that attempted to block all federal and state Medicaid funding of Planned Parenthood (or any organization that provides abortion as one of its services) was struck down by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The importance and scope of the decision should not be overstated. While supporters of Planned Parenthood are touting this (correctly) as a victory, the grounds on which the law was struck down were fairly narrow. Federal law requires that Medicaid money be given to any organization that is able to provided quality medical services to Medicaid recipients. Planned Parenthood meets the threshold definition of a qualified medical facility; therefore, it can't be denied Medicaid money by a Medicaid-participating state like Indiana. Here is a relavant excerpt from the decision (via Politico ): "The defunding law excludes Planned Parenthood from Medicaid for a reason unrelated to its fitness to provide medical services, violating its patients' stat...

The Washington Post published an article that suggests that all of the partisan wrangling over Planned Parenthood funding might have fatally damaged the public legitimacy of the organization. The article is informative. However, assuming its thesis is accurate, the author subtly seems to assign fault to Planned Parenthood itself for this current condition: Planned Parenthood has become so embroiled in partisan politics that its mission to provide health care and family planning services to women is threatened. I don't see how Planned Parenthood's quest to maintain government grants or to locate alternative forms of government funding by appealing to a political party that supports its mission is an improper foray into "partisan politics." Planned Parenthood only seems to be partisan because one political party has focused a lot of negative attention on them. If you ran an organization that became a bete noire of one political party, what would you do? Would yo...