Letter to the Editor

Defunding Planned Parenthood would hurt Delco

To the Times: The following is a letter to Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa.:

You are a senator from a state in which 28 percent of the population is classified as low income and where recent studies have shown that 18 percent of your constituents rely on Medicaid or CHIP for health care. Studies also show that Pennsylvania’s expansion of Medicaid in accordance with the ACA has enabled almost 703,000 adult Pennsylvanians to obtain the necessary medical care that was not previously available. Yet, you have stated your support for the bill which was introduced in the Senate with the intent of keeping your campaign promise to repeal the ACA.

Since the enactment of Title X of the Public Health Service U.S. Act almost 50 years ago, our nation has assured the provision of health services to low-income and uninsured people. That law also assures the provision of family planning services at reduced or no cost.

In Pennsylvania, the Title X Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) and Planned Parenthood facilities see the majority of women seeking preventive health care and family planning services. While it constitutes just 6 percent of all family planning providers, Planned Parenthood provides 32 percent of all safety net contraceptive services as well as cancer screenings, primary care, and STD diagnosis.

In short, while the average Title X Health Center, such as Delaware County’s ChesPenn Clinic, serves 320 contraceptive clients in a year, the average Planned Parenthood center serves almost 3,000.

You should be able to discern from the facts of this issue how unrealistic is your expectation that, when federal funds are withheld from Planned Parenthood, the Title X Centers would be able to adequately serve the massively increased number of women who rely on Planned Parenthood for high quality health care and contraceptive services. Yet, overwhelming community clinics with the thousands of patients no longer able to access services at Planned Parenthood is your simplistic solution to the problem that your health care vote would create. The impact here in Delaware County would be increased instances of undiagnosed cancer and a steep increase in the number of teen pregnancies, a number, by the way, that had begun to greatly decrease because of the ACA.

Although you owe it to the people of Pennsylvania to support measures that will be a benefit to us you are supporting a bill that would defund Planned Parenthood and result in the denial of services to those who depend on Planned Parenthood, and would overwhelm hospital emergency departments and Title X public clinics. Do you not see the harm that your vote would do to your constituents? Or, is it that your concern is for politics over our needs?