State lawmakers expand funding for anti-abortion centers, even as women's health suffers

Women and their access to health care has been in the news these past few months, as the plan to replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) made headlines for, among other things, what it potentially leaves out of women’s health care coverage. Under the bill passed by the U.S. House known as the American Health Care Act, it’s quite possible that insurance companies could revive their old rules that treated sexual assault, domestic violence, postpartum depression, pregnancy, and Caesarean sections as “preexisting conditions,” and thereby charging women who have experienced them more or denying coverage entirely.

Here in North Carolina, the news been similarly discouraging as lawmakers have mostly abandoned the idea of taking affirmative public action to promote women’s health. Remarkably, this is true despite the presence of data showing a number of poor health outcomes for the women of North Carolina as compared to other states.

Unfortunately, one “women’s health” initiative the North Carolina General Assembly has managed to find money for is the anti-abortion ministry of so-called crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs).

In 2011, the state created a “choose life” license plate, with proceeds going to CPCs (there is no corresponding plate that shows support for reproductive rights). In 2013, when sales of license plates weren’t generating enough funds, lawmakers budgeted $250,000 to fund these mostly religious centers that lure in patients who may think they are going into a reproductive health care clinic.

Read more: http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2017/06/19/state-lawmakers-expand-funding-anti-abortion-centers-even-womens-health-suffers/