Texas bishops support true, comprehensive women’s health program

The Catholic Church has always believed in and advocated for access to health care as a fundamental safeguard of human life. In particular, the Church vocally supports women’s access to preventive medical services, such as screening and treatment for breast and ovarian cancer, heart disease, and osteoporosis, as essential to comprehensive, affordable and quality health care.

Unfortunately, many abortion proponents insist on forcibly grafting contraception, sterilization and abortion into our basic definitions of medical care, then criticizing anyone who objects as being an “opponent of women’s health care.”

While the Texas Catholic bishops do not support all of the services offered through the Women’s Health Program, they did support the provisions of Senate Bill 7, which prohibited Medicaid funds going to abortion providers or their affiliates. There are currently more than 2,500 certified Women’s Health Providers in Texas, many of which offer comprehensive primary and preventative care to low income women and are not abortion providers or affiliated with abortion providers.

There are only 44 Planned Parenthood locations in the Women’s Health Program and many do not provide comprehensive health care; say, for example, mammograms or many common gynecological services, which are critical for women’s health. It is the Texas bishops’ position that true women’s health services should be separated from services that are not health care: namely, contraception, sterilization and abortion.

By insisting that the state of Texas cannot direct funds to thousands of providers statewide who offer true, comprehensive, women’s healthcare, and instead require Medicaid funds go to prop up 44 Planned Parenthood clinics, the federal government risks removing preventative health care from hundreds of thousands of women in Texas.