Question for Jeb Bush: What do you define as women's health services?

Today Governor Jeb Bush reiterated that he is completely out of touch with women’s health care needs — stating that Planned Parenthood is “...not actually doing women's health issues. They're involved in something way different than that.”

The 2.7 million people across the country who visit Planned Parenthood for health care services and information would disagree. Governor Bush obviously does not understand what is defined as women’s health services.

It’s clear Jeb Bush shouldn’t be making health care decisions for anyone — just look at what he did to women’s health in Florida. However this does beg the question: If providing millions of women each year with birth control, breast exams and pregnancy tests and more doesn’t count as women’s health in Jeb Bush’s world, what does?

Planned Parenthood Facts

Planned Parenthood is one of the nation's most trusted providers of high-quality, affordable reproductive health care for women, men, and young people. In 2013, Planned Parenthood’s nearly 700 nonprofit health centers provided a total of10,590,433 services, including:

• Providing 2,131,865 women with reversible contraception, including 1,440,495 emergency contraception kits
• Provided 378,692 Pap tests
• Provided 487,029 breast exams and care
• Screened 87,988 women whose cancer was detected early or whose abnormalities were identified
• Provided 34,739 HPV vaccinations
• Performed 2,095 LEEP procedures
• Provided 1,128,783 pregnancy tests
• Provided 18,684  prenatal services
• Provided 327,653 abortion procedures
• Provided 47,264 urinary tract infection (UTI) treatments

In addition, Planned Parenthood’s health centers provided women and men with 3,727,359 STI tests and treatment, including 38,612 treatments for genital warts (HPV) and 704,079 HIV tests.

Florida Facts

As of July in 2015, Planned Parenthood health centers in Florida have:

• Served over 70,000 patients
• Provided 46,698 women with birth control services
• Conducted 61,051 STI tests
• Performed 16,583 breast exams

Of all 50 states, Florida is tied for last place in women's health. Thirty-four percent of Florida’s 67 counties do not have any ob-gyns, and as of 2012, more than one million in Florida were in need of publicly supported contraception.

Jeb Bush’s Florida

• In a study of all 50 states’ health care policies known to improve the health and well-being of women and children, Jeb Bush’s home state of Florida is tied for last place for women’s health.
• According to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), 34 percent of Florida’s 67 counties do not have any ob-gyns.
• In 2012, 1,199,480 women in Florida were in need of publicly supported contraception; and thanks to the Affordable Care Act more than 1,801,000 now have access without a copay.
• In the absence of the publicly supported family planning services provided at safety-net health centers like Planned Parenthood, the rates of unintended pregnancy, unplanned birth and abortion would be 28 percent higher in Florida, and the teen pregnancy rate would be 37 percent higher.

Jeb Bush’s Positions on Women’s Health

• As governor, Bush signed at least SIX anti-abortion laws into law and in 2003 declared that he was "probably the most pro-life governor in modern times.” He advocated for and signed targeted restrictions on abortion providers, one of which the Tampa Bay Times editorial board wrote were “rules clearly written by bureaucrats, not health professionals.” Bush said that he signed the bill “gladly, with pride and conviction," because he was motivated to “create a culture of life in our state.”
• As governor, Bush aggressively intervened in two high-profile cases to prevent a developmentally disabled rape victim and a young woman, who was a ward of the state and became pregnant after running away from another state group home, from being able to access safe, legal abortion. In one of those cases, he tried to get a state-appointed legal guardian for the young woman’s fetus.
• Jeb Bush intervened in what has been called one of the “most contentious, drawn-out conflicts in the history of America’s culture wars,” and attempted to take custody of Terri Schiavo and overrule her husband’s decision to remove her feeding tube, 15 years after cardiac arrest had left her in a vegetative state.
• Jeb Bush allowed a law to pass in Florida in 2001 that forced single mothers — including minors and rape victims — planning to put their children up for adoption to advertise their sexual histories in a newspaper if they didn’t know the identity of the father. Bush, who was Florida’s governor at the time, declined to veto the bill, which quickly became known as the “Scarlet Letter Law.”
• Bush wrote an entire chapter in his book on “character” called “The Restoration of Shame” about returning to a time when “public condemnation” was used to prevent people from “irresponsible conduct,” specifically targeting single mothers.
• Jeb Bush funneled millions of taxpayer dollars into abstinence-only programs, while cutting funds for crucial family planning programs that health centers like Planned Parenthood provide.

Tags: Abortion, Planned Parenthood, Jeb Bush, Defunding