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Washington D.C., Jan 18, 2017 / 03:56 pm (CNA).- Congressional plans to strip Planned Parenthood of federal dollars have gained considerable media attention in recent weeks, leading to speculation about the impact that such a move would have on women’s health.

Both the House and the Senate have passed measures to set up a vote to bar Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funds, which mostly come in the form of Medicaid reimbursements. According to its FY 2014-15 report, the organization and its affiliates received almost $554 million in taxpayer dollars, 43 percent of its total revenue.

The measures have been hailed as a victory by pro-life groups, and lamented as an attack on women’s health care by those who support abortion.

But beneath the hype, what exactly would happen if federal funding were pulled from Planned Parenthood?

Years of controversy

The main argument against Planned Parenthood’s federal funding is that it is the nation’s largest abortion provider, performing around 330,000 abortions per year, and the Hyde Amendment prohibits federal dollars from directly paying for abortions.

Medicaid reimbursements and federal health grants are not supposed to go directly toward abortions, although a recent report by the Charlotte Lozier Institute and Alliance Defending Freedom claimed that, according to federal and state audits, taxpayer dollars were funding abortion-related services.

In New York, “hundreds of thousands of abortion-related claims were billed unlawfully to Medicaid” over a four-year audit, the report said. One audit in Nebraska “found a Planned Parenthood affiliate spending federal funds on abortion expenses” like “physician fees” for an abortionist and “employee travel” and “on-call” work time involving abortion procedures.

Planned Parenthood claims that abortions account for only three percent of the total services they provide, although fact-checkers – at the Washington Post among others – have taken issue with that claim, pointing out that Planned Parenthood counts each small procedure like a pregnancy test or a pap smear as a service provided, but abortion accounts for much greater cost and revenue for the organization.

During a town hall last week, House Speaker Paul Ryan explained that even if federal dollars are not going to direct payment for abortions at Planned Parenthood clinics, the current revenue may be fungible – it frees up other resources for Planned Parenthood to perform abortions.

Additionally, the organization has come under fire for multiple controversies in recent years.

A 2015 Alliance Defending Freedom report claimed that Planned Parenthood clinics in several states were not reporting suspected cases of sexual abuse of minors as they were supposed to by law.

Planned Parenthood doctors were also shown on undercover camera in 2015 discussing prices for the body parts of aborted babies with actors posing as representatives of a tissue procurement company. Those videos shone a light on the organization’s role in the fetal tissue trade.

These controversies have strengthened calls for defunding. According to polls released by the pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List earlier this month, a majority of respondents in states that will be “battleground states” in the 2018 Senate races – like North Dakota, Florida, and Ohio – opposed taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood.  

Providing alternatives

In his town hall comments, Speaker Ryan stressed: “We don’t want to effectively commit taxpayer money to an organization providing abortions, but we want to make sure that people get their coverage.”

“We believe that this can better be done by putting that money in federal community health centers,” he added. “They are vastly bigger in network, there are so many more of them, and they provide these kinds of services without all the controversy surrounding this issue.”

According to the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the research arm of the Susan B. Anthony List, such health centers are publicly-funded and exist in all 50 states, almost 10,000 in total, compared to around 650 Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide. The health centers served over 24 million people in 2015, while Planned Parenthood says it serves around 2.5 million per year.

There are also thousands of other rural health clinics that offer services including primary care and first response, as well as some vaccinations, though these facilities are not required to offer as many services as federally qualified health centers are. Some 4,000 crisis pregnancy centers in the U.S. also offer help for expectant mothers.  

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the “main purpose” of federally qualified health centers “is to enhance the provision of primary care services in medically-underserved urban and rural communities.”

These health centers do not perform abortions but they do provide services like pre-natal and perinatal care, diabetes screening, pap smears, checkups and mammograms, something Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards has admitted her clinics do not provide, despite claims that they do. Planned Parenthood only provides referrals for mammograms, not the procedures themselves.

Would Planned Parenthood survive?

Removing federal funding from Planned Parenthood would not necessarily mean that the organization would shut its doors.

From 2011-2015, Planned Parenthood’s annual reports indicate that its revenue exceeded expenses by more than $300 million.

The organization also fundraises, and claims that the threat of defunding has considerably upped contributions from private donors.

The Congressional Budget Office in 2015 considered the potential consequences of defunding Planned Parenthood for a year. It found that it was uncertain whether the organization would be able to replace the lost funding.

“If none of the federal funds were replaced,” the budget office said, some customers wouldn’t receive any services that they would have received at Planned Parenthood, while others would go to other clinics accepting Medicaid payments.

“If almost all federal funds were replaced, CBO expects that most Medicaid beneficiaries currently served by Planned Parenthood would continue to obtain services from Planned Parenthood, but at no cost to Medicaid,” they said.

Is it enough?

If Planned Parenthood did close its doors, would federally qualified health centers and pregnancy centers be able to handle an influx of patients seeking health care other than birth control or abortions?

When “family planning clinics” in Texas and Wisconsin closed due to state funding cuts, the number of women utilizing services like cancer screenings and checkups at clinics also went down, said Professor David Slusky at the University of Kansas.

But in those cases, there were cuts in funding in addition to redirecting some of the remaining state funds to health centers. In contrast, the current plan proposed by Congress would not cut funding, but simply redirect it.

Slusky told CNA that it is not clear from his research whether health centers would fill health care “gaps” left by the closure of some Planned Parenthood clinics. Part of this would depend on what other clinics were receiving funding. It is possible that some women would forego cancer screenings and other forms of care if they have to travel a greater distance to find a clinic.

Knowledge of other options would be key. Women going to Planned Parenthood clinics may not necessarily know of other crisis pregnancy centers, writes research analyst Dr. Jeff Pauls.

Many women he interviewed for his work “were unaware of the idea of the Pregnancy Help Center, although they occasionally referenced government health clinics as an alternative to Planned Parenthood.”

The women were not necessarily admirers of Planned Parenthood, he wrote, saying that they “are most troubled by the waiting room practices demonstrated by the long waits, non-confidential medical conversations, and the general fear and mistrust of the low-income people who are frequent customers.”

Ultimately, Charlotte Lozier Institute believes women will be able to access the care they need through other clinics. The number of Planned Parenthood patients has decreased recently and their total “prenatal services” are down 44 percent since 2010, they said. And according to the pro-life group Live Action, Planned Parenthood provides only 2 percent of the nation’s clinical breast exams and 1 percent of the nation’s pap smears.

If the organization’s current federal funding were redirected to community health centers, those centers would see an average patient increase of two per week and almost surely would be able to meet the increased need.

And the centers have been growing, Charlotte Lozier Institute says, treating almost two million new patients and growing by 430 new centers in 2015.

The institute also pointed to a website showing locations of health centers and pregnancy centers and the services they offer, GetYourCare.org.

“Voters agree: taxpayer dollars would be better spent on community and rural health centers that provide comprehensive, whole-woman care,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List. “Abortion giants like Planned Parenthood do not need or deserve taxpayer dollars.”

 

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Lincoln, Neb., Jan 18, 2017 / 04:46 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Sister Madeleine Miller’s efforts to substitute teach in a Nebraska public school ran afoul of a century-old law that left her bewildered – and prompted the state legislature to take another look at the law’s dark past.

“I was just shocked,” she told the Lincoln Journal-Star. “It was 2015. How could that possibly be legal or constitutional?”

Sr. Miller, 37, is a member of the Missionary Benedictine Sisters of Norfolk, which requires its sisters to wear their habit at almost all times in public.

She had applied to Norfolk Public Schools as a public school substitute due to a lack of openings in Catholic schools. The school district told her she couldn’t wear her habit if she was hired.

“I could have been arrested, jailed, fined or had my license taken away if I had tried to teach,” Sr. Miller told the Associated Press.

The 1919 law was backed by the Ku Klux Klan and other anti-Catholic groups. Violations are criminal misdemeanors. Teachers who violate the law face a one year suspension for the first offense, then lifetime disqualification from teaching on a second offense.

The law would also ban yarmulkes and burqas.

At one time 36 states have had similar legislation. Now, only Nebraska and Pennsylvania still bar religious garb for public school teachers. Oregon was the most recent state to repeal the law, in 2010.

Speaker of the Legislature Jim Scheer has proposed a bill to end the law, saying it violates teachers’ free speech rights and compounds Nebraska’s teacher shortages in 18 fields.

Many groups have supported the repeal of the law, including the Nebraska Catholic Conference, the Thomas More Society, the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska, and the Nebraska State Education Association.

Because she could not find a job in the eastern Nebraska school district, Sr. Miller moved to her order’s convent in Winnebago, Neb. to work at a Sioux City, Iowa Catholic school.

She holds a Nebraska teaching certificate, a bachelor’s degree from Nebraska’s Wayne State College, and a master’s degree from the University of Chicago.

Sr. Miller said her goal in teaching is to help students learn, and “not to make converts.”

“I think everyone should have a right to work in their professional capacity regardless of their faith tradition,” she said. “You do what you're hired to do and you go home. And everyone should have that right.”

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(Vatican Radio) A delegation from the U.S. state of Louisiana was among the special guests meeting with Pope Francis during his general audience on Wednesday. Led by Governor John Bel Edwards, the delegation asked the Pope to bless the pioneering work that is going on in Louisiana to prevent human trafficking and to protect victims who’ve been trapped in this modern day slavery.

That work includes special training for police officers and the opening of a shelter for sixteen young women in a secure location near the city of Baton Rouge.

To find out more about the project Philippa Hitchen spoke to Governor Edwards and to Fr Jeff Bayhi, pastor of St John the Baptist Catholic Church in Zachary….

Listen: 

Fr Bayhi was inspired the tireless anti-trafficking efforts of Italian Consolata Sister Eugenia Bonetti, whose passion, he says “is contagious”. He explains that the Louisiana initiative has brought together the governor, state agencies, law enforcement, legislators and senators , alongside ‘Metanoia’, the umbrella group for the project which he founded. “It’s been an incredible opportunity to see a state reach out and say ‘slaves no more’, we need to care for these kids” he says.

Governor John Bel Edwards says that Louisiana was a “hotbed” of human trafficking activity, partly as a result of some 15 million tourists that come primarily to New Orleans each year. The situation is also impacted by the “interstate” highway that runs from California to Florida, passing through southern Louisiana.

“It’s really a tragic circumstance and we have to really do much better in Louisiana and around the country,” the governor insists. However, numbers of trafficking cases are dropping because of the Metanoia shelter initiative.

Speaking about setting up the house, Fr Bayhi says it will provide shelter for 16 children at a time, allowing them to “feel safe and secure, give them some sense of worth” as well as providing them with life skills to enable them to find other ways of earning a living. Sr Eugenia has helped by sending four sisters who will take care of the young survivors, together with other local professionals.

Fr Bayhi talks about Pope John Paul II’s writings on the “culture of death”, saying that human trafficking “is one more step in the devaluation of the dignity and the sanctity of human life.” He also has a stark warning for male consumers of the human trafficking industry, saying they create “a deficit in the dignity of human life.”

“If anyone thinks that internet porn is victimless,” he insists, “someone is there making those kids do that stuff. They are not there voluntarily and you’re paying the money that makes it worth while to kidnap these kids and force them into that. You may have never picked up one of these children on a roadside but you make that possible”.

“If we want to fight this,” Fr Bayhi concludes, “we have got to destroy the market that allows human life to be so denigrated. And if you have any part in that, you’re part of the problem. We invite you to be part of the solution.”

Find out more about the project on the Metanoia website: metanoia-inc.org

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Caracas, Venezuela, Jan 18, 2017 / 11:54 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The bishops of Venezuela have urged that elections take place in the country in a timely manner, in light of the crisis of hyperinflation and chronic shortages of goods facing their nation.

“The country requires a plan for elections, just as was agreed upon during the round-table discussions,” the Venezuelan bishops' conference said in a Jan. 13 pastoral exhortation “Jesus Christ, the Light and the Way for Venezuela.”

They urged the government to comply with an Oct. 30 agreement so that dialogue with the opposition, which controls the legislature, can continue and thus pull Venezuela out of its crisis.

The country has been ruled by a socialist government since 1999, and particularly in recent yers has been marred by violence and social and economic upheaval; the International Monetary Fund expects an inflation rate of 1,600 percent in 2017.

Poor economic policies, including strict price controls, coupled with high inflation rates, have resulted in a severe lack of basic necessities such as toilet paper, milk, flour, diapers, and medicines.

“A great darkness covers our country,” the bishops wrote. “We are going through dramatic situations: the serious shortage of medicine and food. Never before had we seen our brothers rummaging through garbage in search of food!”

Their pastoral letter, written at the conclusion of the bishops' plenary assembly, criticized the social and political crisis, aggravated by the repression and arrest of opposition leaders, the attempt by the regime to curtail the powers of the legislature, and the obstruction of the recall referendum by the National Electoral Council which prevented Venezuelans from deciding on the rule of President Nicolás Maduro, creating “disillusionment and frustration among the citizenry.”

“Only in totalitarian regimes is the autonomy of public authorities ignored and free expression by the citizenry thwarted,” the bishops stated.

As on other occasions, the bishops reiterated that the fundamental cause of the crisis “is the great effort the government to impose a totalitarian system … even though the Marxist socialist system has failed in all the countries in where it has been established, leaving in its wake suffering and poverty.”

In that regard, they lamented the disappointing outcome of the dialogue between the regime and the opposition, in which the Holy See acted as a facilitator, mainly because of the “government's failure to comply with the agreements that had been reached during the Oct. 30, 2016 meeting … We are extremely grateful for the service provided by Pope Francis and we lament that his contribution towards peace in Venezuela was misinterpreted.”

In that regard, they reiterated that “conditions for continuing the dialogue were indicated by the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, in his Dec.1, 2016 letter.”

These conditions are “alleviating the grave crisis in the supply of food and medicine the population is suffering,” that the parties “come to an agreement on the timetable for elections which will allow Venezuelans to decide on their future without delay,” that “necessary measures are taken to restore to the National Assembly as soon as possible its role provided for in the Constitution,” and “ implement the legal procedures to hasten the process of releasing the detainees.”

In their exhortation, the bishops reminded Christians that their mission is, “in whatever the circumstances, to proclaim the God of life and turn the culture of death into a culture of life.”

“How can we be those who bring light and hope to a panorama of darkness and death?” they asked.

In that regard, they said, “it is necessary to make courageous gestures and innovative initiatives which provide the motivation to hope against all hope to build a free, just and fraternal coexistence; this is a task that belongs to everyone, every one according to their position … The call is to be protagonists of the present and future of our beloved country.”

They likewise urged the government to accept international aid “to help address the shortages experienced by so many men, women and children who are at risk” and they reiterated the Church's offer to make available its organizational infrastructure.

“The people are clamoring for a profound change in the political direction of the country that would be the result of the decision of the sovereign people: either the 21st century socialism which is absent from the constitution, or the democratic system established in the constitution. The country requires a plan for elections, just as agreed upon in the Roundtable Discussions,” they said.

The bishops concluded their document asking Our Lady of Coromoto to intercede for Venezuela and for God to “enlighten our leaders so they reach as soon as possible the agreements necessary to overcome the crisis. We implore his blessing on all the inhabitants of the country.”

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