Texas de-funds women’s clinics

The Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 7 by a vote of 96 to 48 on June 27, eliminating more than two-thirds of Planned Parenthood's funding for women's health services beginning Sept. 1.

Bastion Carboni of Poison Apple Initiative nonprofit organized a performative action and wrote a short two-minute play he and other concerned citizens executed in front of the capitol in downtown Austin Sept. 14 to protest the bill.

The passing of SB 7 rescinded partnerships between the Texas Department of State Health Services, Planned Parenthood and other local nonprofit clinics, which provide health exams and services to uninsured Austin residents.

"I never thought it would happen," Carboni said. "I thought [Planned Parenthood would] always be there and the other side [would] never win."

In Texas alone, El Buen Samaritano, People's Community Clinic and Planned Parenthood collectively will lose $1.4 million in federal and state funds. These nonprofits used the funds to support critical health care screenings and birth control to roughly 7,270 women in 13,007 well-woman exams, and according to Planned Parenthood a few hundred thousand women are expected to lose access to basic health care.

Carboni said participants in the demonstration sat down in a line then stood up if a poster was raised listing a service they had received at the clinic. Video of the action will be streamed on YouTube, and Carboni hopes it will go viral to raise awareness for the cause.

Planned Parenthood offers a wide range of services and regular medical exams performed by health professionals including screening for cervical, testicular and breast cancer, anemia, hypertension, diabetes, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV and high blood pressure. They also treat sexually transmitted diseases, offer different methods of abortion and educate about prenatal nutrition, natural family planning and birth control.

Abortion makes up three percent of the services Planned Parenthood offers, Carboni said, and none of the government funds were used to support those procedures.

"More people's quality of life will suffer than any fetal life will benefit," Carboni said.

Carboni's group of activists handed out flyers with information about the recent legislative actions to defund the program and ways others can get involved and help. There are precedents for the bill to be overturned, such as in Kansas' legislature, he said, and his goal is to bolster more people into taking action and donating to the clinic so it may continue to provide health services to the public without closing any locations.

"This is the time of culpability and we have to do something because our government won't," he said. "This is not over, there is precedent and that gives me heart and inspiration."