Triumphant Boasts about Increasing Budgets and Providers Belie the Facts
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Aug. 1, 2016
AUSTIN – Today the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund, as part of its Texas: State of Denial campaign (StateOfDenialTX.org), delivered almost 7,000 letters from Texans to Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, calling on her to stop playing politics and face the facts about the harm politicians have done to women’s health care.
The delivery comes as Nelson begins a media blitz announcing yet another update to the state’s struggling Women’s Health Program. The state has operated the program since 2013, following the Legislature’s decision to decline federal funding in order to bar Planned Parenthood.
“Senator Nelson obviously recognizes the mess the state has made of women’s health care – that’s what last week’s PR stunt is all about,” said Kathy Miller, president of the TFN Education Fund. “But the facts are unchanged: thousands of women have been denied access to birth control in Texas because of political decisions by state leaders. And until the state can show that women are getting the health care they need, this is all just smoke and mirrors.”
The TFN Education Fund launched the Texas: State of Denial campaign earlier this year following a study in the respected New England Journal of Medicine showing that after the state barred Planned Parenthood from participating in the Women’s Health Program, Texas saw a 35 percent decline in women using the most effective methods of birth control and a 27 percent spike in Medicaid births among women who had previously used injectable contraception.
Sen. Nelson immediately lashed out at the study, denying the findings and attacking two state researchers who participated in the study. One of the researchers, under threat of disciplinary action, later retired.
Texas: State of Denial was accompanied by a public education campaign with radio and digital ads placed in top media outlets like the Dallas Morning News and Houston Chronicle, as well as on top social media platforms, reaching a total audience of several million Texans across the state.
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The Texas Freedom Network Education Fund supports research and education efforts that promote religious freedom and individual liberties, including women’s reproductive freedom.
