With Romney Set to Officially Secure Nomination in Texas, Women Can Get a Clear Picture of Women’s Health Under a Romney Administration
For Immediate Release: Jan. 27, 2013
Campaigns on Eliminating Women’s Access to Basic Preventive Health Care
Tonight, Mitt Romney is poised to secure the 1,144 delegates required to clinch the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. It is fitting that it should happen in Texas, where Americans can get a clear preview of what women’s health would look like under a Romney presidency.
Last year, Texas drastically cut its family planning funding, the same way Mitt Romney has pledged to do on a national scale. An estimated 160,000 women lost their health care when Texas slashed its family-planning program last year. Now, the state is trying to throw more women off health care by taking Planned Parenthood out of the state’s Women’s Health Program. Planned Parenthood health centers provide care to more than 50,000 women in the program.
“What has happened to women’s health services in Texas has devastating consequences for women — and Mitt Romney wants to do it in all 50 states,” says Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. “What Mitt Romney doesn’t seem to understand is that women’s health care is an economic issue for women.”
Mitt Romney has pledged to “get rid” of Planned Parenthood, which would meaning cutting access to the health care that nearly three million people a year rely on including cancer screenings, birth control, and other preventive care.
Romney also pledges to overturn Roe v. Wade, and opposes coverage of birth control without co-pays, denying millions of women and families access to the affordable care they need.
“Women aren’t making a political statement when they come to Planned Parenthood,” says Richards. “But they’re not afraid to make a statement to keep the health care they rely on for themselves and their families, and keep Mitt Romney out of the White House.”
Throughout his primary campaign, Mitt Romney has aligned himself with a very narrow and dangerous anti-women’s health minority. What he doesn’t seem to realize is that women are watching and will be voting come November.