PPIN supporters block Walorski's attempt to Leave 49,000 Hoosiers Without Health Care

March 2, 2009

State Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Jimtown) has pledged her energies to amend legislation this session that would strip Planned Parenthood of Indiana of its funding. In the last week, she attached 2 different amendments to a handful of bills that were advancing. So far her efforts have failed.

Most notably, Rep. Walorski tried to amend House Bill 1653, legislation dealing with Medicaid service bidding. However, after much floor discussion, the amendment was ruled non-germane, or unrelated to, the original legislation, by a vote of 50-47.

Thanks to all of our supporters who responded to our e-mail advocacy campaign to prevent these amendments. In two days, nearly 600 of our supporters contacted their State Representatives to ask them to vote against defunding PPIN. Without the hard work of our supporters, Rep. Walorski's legislation could have meant the elimination of reproductive health care for 49,000 low-income Hoosiers at a time of greatest need.

What would Indiana look like without Planned Parenthood?

PPIN is first and foremost a leading provider of quality, affordable health care. The fundamental work of PPIN is to ensure healthy reproductive lives and that Hoosiers are fully informed and planning whether and when to become parents. Nearly all our patients come to us for preventive care, including cervical cancer screenings, breast exams, STD tests and birth control.

PPIN provides health care to those with nowhere else to turn, and we do so compassionately and confidentially. Never has it been more important than now that PPIN be there, at 35 locations across Indiana, to provide the uninsured and underinsured, the unemployed and underemployed, with fundamental health care.

After years of cuts in federal aid for family planning services, teen births are on the rise for the first time in decades. Thirty-one Hoosier teens become pregnant every day. One in four young women has an STD. Defunding Planned Parenthood is not the answer to reducing the need for abortion. Common sense measures like comprehensive sex education and access to affordable reproductive health care are what Hoosiers need.

While it may be Rep. Walorski's aim to close down abortion facilities in Indiana, her defunding efforts would have no effect on abortion providers - not one dime of public money is used for abortions in this state.

Defunding would, however, shut down family planning centers. What does that mean? It means as many as 49,000 low-income women and men in Indiana would lose their reproductive health care – Pap tests, annual exams, sexually transmitted disease testing and treatment, birth control. It means more tragic outcomes from failure to plan pregnancies and prevent cervical and breast cancers.

Tactics like these put basic Hoosier health care at risk. To learn how you can help protect Hoosier's access to health care, click here.