Get ready for a big fight: Texas officials slash $600,000 for Planned Parenthood's anti-HIV efforts.
A big fight over Planned Parenthood is looming in the Lone Star State.
The Texas Department of State Health has opted not to renew a contract worth $600,000 to fund Planned Parenthood’s HIV-prevention program, according to an Examiner report.
The program has been in place since 1988 and has involved testing, condom distribution, and counseling in an effort to drive down infection rates for HIV and AIDS.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dole out the funds, but it’s up to the states to decide how to distribute those funds. Planned Parenthood is certainly a controversial organization in the state of Texas due to the fact that the organization also assists in abortions, and it has led to opposition in many conservative states who want to defund the organization as much as possible — even though Planned Parenthood advocates argue that the organization provides much more than abortions.
The move comes after controversial videos appeared to show a Planned Parenthood official admitting to profiting from fetal organs, even though the organization denied this to be the case and claimed the videos were heavily edited.
Rochelle Tafolla, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, was quoted in the Texas Tribune as saying the move will be a devastating one for the anti-HIV effort in the state. “I don’t know who else is going to fill that gap, and I don’t know if anyone can, frankly,” she said.
Tafolla accused the officials responsible for the decision of trying to “score political points” while “the true victims here are tens of thousands of women and men who no longer have access to health care that they need.”
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