Planned Parenthood Action Fund Statement on Iowa Caucuses

For Immediate Release: Feb. 3, 2016

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Washington, DC --- Tonight, Ted Cruz was declared the winner of the Iowa Republican caucuses. Planned Parenthood Action Fund released the following statement:

Dawn Laguens, Executive Vice President of Planned Parenthood Action Fund:

“Tonight we got a taste of exactly what’s at stake in this presidential election. Ted Cruz has been endorsed by the one of the most extreme anti-abortion activists --- whose organization has ties to murdering doctors and trying to bomb women’s health centers. Cruz would make abortion illegal --- even in cases of rape and incest --- and opposes access to birth control. Ted Cruz would rather shut down the federal government than allow low-income women to access pap smears and breast exams. In short, Ted Cruz would turn America into a hellish nightmare for women.”

“Ted Cruz’s crusade against women’s health may have garnered support from the most extreme elements of the anti-abortion movement -- but it falls flat with the American people. Our millions of supporters will not stop fighting --- and together we will ensure we put a women’s health champion in the White House.”

As poll after poll has shown, the GOP presidential field is out of touch with what everyday Americans’ lives are like --- and is too extreme for the American people.

Ted Cruz wants to ban safe, legal abortion -- even in cases of rape and incest

• His positions:

  • Ted Cruz supported the Texas bill HB2, the Texas anti-abortion law that has already shut down more than half of the abortion providers in the state and has forced some people to wait as long as 20 days, drive hundreds of miles, and make multiple trips to access safe, legal abortion. 

  • He has called Roe v. Wade a “shadow in our nation’s history”

  • He is promising to push for a personhood amendment to the Constitution

  • He promises to nominate Supreme Court judges who will overturn Roe

• What his positions actually mean:

  • He would let government get in the way of women and their personal health care decisions. Look at Cruz’s home state of Texas where politicians have done all they can to restrict access to safe, legal abortion.  Since HB 2 passed, a bill Cruz threw his support behind, the consequences have been devastating. Texas paints a disturbing picture of what American would look like under Ted Cruz.​

  • Women have been forced to travel hundreds of miles, cross state lines, and wait weeks to get an abortion, if they can get one at all.

  • Researchers estimate that at least 100,000 Texas women have tried to end a pregnancy on their own without medical assistance (read more here and here).  Due to HB2, that number will only increase, since the study found that women were more likely to self-induce abortion if they encountered barriers to reproductive health services.

  • If the 2013 restrictions go into full effect, the 5.9 million women of reproductive age in Texas will be left with only 10 health centers that provide safe, legal abortion in the entire state.  

While abortion is an extremely safe procedure, it is safest earlier in pregnancy. With a President Cruz, women could be forced to undergo more dangerous procedures later in pregnancy, for political—and not medical—reasons.  His policies would harm women.

 

Ted Cruz wants to cut insurance coverage of birth control

• His positions:

  • He's called the no-co-pay birth control provision in the Affordable Care Act a ‘sham’

  • He believes that birth control is an “abortion-inducing drug”

  • He filed an amicus brief in support of allowing employers to deny women birth control

• What his positions actually mean:

  • Ted Cruz’s policies would make it more expensive and harder to access birth control -- which would have far-reaching consequences for millions of women.

  • Eliminating the Affordable Care Act would end the birth control benefit --- thanks to which, more than 55 million women are now eligible for birth control without a copay.  

  • A recent study published in Health Affairs found that the Affordable Care Act has saved women $1.4 billion a year on birth control pills alone — showing the clear economic impact that access to no co-pay birth control has had on women’s lives.  Ted Cruz wants to eliminate those savings.

  • Birth control has meant more educational and economic options for women. Since the 1960s when oral contraceptives became available the number of women in the U.S. labor force has nearly  tripled, and the number of women who complete four or more years of college is six times what it was before birth control became legal.

  • Birth control has helped women move closer to economic equity. Research finds that availability of the pill is responsible for a third of women’s wage increases relative to men. By the 1980s and ’90s, the women who had early access to the pill were making eight percent more each year than those who did not.

Ted Cruz wants to cut access to health care at Planned Parenthood -- threatening millions

• His positions:

  • He’d rather shut down the government then allow Planned Parenthood patients -- many of whom are low-income and have no other options -- receive access to birth control, cancer screenings, and STI testing and treatment.

  • He has voted three times to block patients from accessing services at Planned Parenthood

  • He has stated that one of his first acts as President would be to have the Department of Justice investigate Planned Parenthood

• What his positions actually mean:

  • Cutting access to care at Planned Parenthood has had devastating consequences in the past. Ted Cruz has show that he’d rather shut down the entire government then allow Americans to access their health care at Planned Parenthood.

  • In many areas across the country, Planned Parenthood is the only place people can go to receive affordable, high-quality reproductive health care. Cutting access to care would leave hundreds of thousands of patients with no where else to go.

  • Three quarters of Planned Parenthood patients are at or below 150% of the poverty line. Many of them would be unable to access affordable health care anywhere else.

  • After a Scott County, Indiana Planned Parenthood health center was forced to shut its doors in 2013, the community was left with nowhere to turn for HIV testing and education. Now the county is facing an unprecedented HIV outbreak, which Governor Mike Pence deemed an “epidemic.”

  • After Texas, after the state prevented Planned Parenthood health centers from participating in its family planning program for low-income women, the program saw a steep decline in patients receiving services.

Ted Cruz wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and doesn’t have a replacement

• His positions

  • In the most recent GOP debate, when asked what his plan was to cover the uninsured, he responded that he would repeal “every word” of the Affordable Care Act

  • He doesn’t have a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act

• What his positions actually mean

  • Millions of people have gained insurance through the Affordable Care Act. Repealing this law would kick millions off of their health insurance plans.

  • Since passage of the ACA, we have seen the largest reduction in the uninsured in four decades. With about 11.3 million people already enrolled in health insurance through the Marketplaces — including nearly 6.1 million women — affordable health coverage is now within reach for millions of women and families.

  • The ACA helped increase health equity in coverage and care for communities of color, including Latinos and African American communities.

  • Since October 2013, the uninsured rate dropped 10.3 percentage points among African Americans, resulting in 2.6 million adults gaining coverage, and dropped 11.5  percentage points for Latinos, resulting in 4 million Latino adults gaining coverage.

  • The “gender rating” provision which prevents insurance companies from charging women higher premiums than men for the same benefits would be eliminated.  Women paid an estimated $1 billion more than men for the same health care plans.