Planned Parenthood

Sex Ed the Texas Way

Dallas wants to close the book on abstinence-only education. Texas keeps getting in the way.

Feds Bypass State, Give $13 Million for Family Planning Directly to Women's Health Coalition

Maybe you're not a Yiddish speaker, but you need a handy illustration of the concept of "chutzpah." In Spanish: cojones. Or in English, if you insist: king-sized brass balls. If you need a real-world demonstration of this cross-cultural concept, you have only to look at how your state-level bureaucr ... More >>

The 10 Weirdest Members of Congress

Texas Reps. Say Planned Parenthood Recruits Schoolkids, Aim to End Its Sex Ed Effort

Texas parents beware: your children are being "imperiled" by "abortion peddlers" who want to teach them "sex education." No. No, they're not. Although at some point someone might want to teach them to put a condom on a banana, and conservative lawmakers, predictably, want to make damn sure that per ... More >>

Former Komen CEO Nancy Brinker Turns to a New Cause: Gay Rights

If one person can be said to be responsible for the inexplicable requirement that professional football players don pink gloves and shoes, it's Nancy Brinker. Through the Dallas-based Susan G. Komen Foundation, she's managed, not quite single-handedly but almost, to turn the fight against breast can ... More >>

Texas Women's Health Program Still Says it Has Enough Docs, Even As It's Forced To Take Down Its Error-Riddled Provider Database

On January 1, Texas took over the Women's Health Program, booted Planned Parenthood out and dyed the website several shades of Pepto Bismol pink. Despite quite a bit of evidence to the contrary, Health and Human Services Commission officials continue to claim there'll be more than enough doctors for ... More >>

Judge Denies Planned Parenthood's Request to Let Them Back in Texas Women's Health Program

Let's do this quickly, so you can incorporate it into all the sorrows you're about drown after you leave work today. A state judge has denied Planned Parenthood's request for a temporary injunction that would have allowed them to rejoin the Texas Women's Health Program. According to Mary Tuma, a r ... More >>

Texas Claims New Women's Health Program Will Serve More Patients Without Planned Parenthood, Despite Contrary Evidence

On New Year's Eve, a state judge ruled that Texas can keep Planned Parenthood out of its new, state-run Women's Health Program. On January 1, that program began; it'll continue to be Planned Parenthood-less until at least January 11, when the next hearing in the case will be held, and possibly forev ... More >>

In Never-Ending Battle Between Texas and Planned Parenthood, Judge Says PP Can Be Blocked From New Women's Health Program

For those of you who have been following the ongoing, never-ending, multi-court battle of Texas vs. Planned Parenthood, we'll make this quick: Planned Parenthood is out of the Texas Women's Health Program. Again. For now. Now, let's all heave a huge collective sigh and revisit the longer version ... More >>

Burn It All Down

Buzz looks back on 2012 before the memories go where they belong: up in smoke.

Rick Perry Supports "Fetal Pain" Measure, Vows to Make Abortion a "Thing of the Past"

Perhaps you were hoping that the upcoming legislative session wouldn't be yet another round of conservative lawmakers vying with one another to show just how deeply and sincerely anti-abortion they are. Or maybe that's exactly what you look for in a lawmaker: an eagle eye and a vise grip on every Te ... More >>

Texas Finally Realizes Where Babies Come From, May Restore Family Planning Money

Last legislative session, your lawmakers in the Texas Legislature cut $73.6 million from the state's family planning budget, a move which, impressively, has somehow resulted in far fewer patients being served, for more money per patient. Don't ask us how they managed that one. As Emily Ramshaw writ ... More >>

Texas Now Serves Fewer Family Planning Patients and Spends More Money To Do It

In the last legislative session, Texas lawmakers cut the state's family planning budget by two-thirds, a loss of around $73.6 million over the next two years. The reason behind this, naturally, was that "family planning" is clearly a secret code word for "abortion." "Of course this is a war on bir ... More >>

Planned Parenthood V. Texas, Round 1,867: Judge Rules PP Can Stay in the WHP, For Now

I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but it's true: the argument between the state of Texas and Planned Parenthood over the Women's Health Program looks like it's never, ever going to end. This case has dragged itself through state courts, federal courts, and back down to the state level again, ... More >>

Texas Will "Immediately" Defund Planned Parenthood After Court Refuses to Hear its Plea

That faint popping sound you heard last night was Governor Rick Perry uncorking a nice bottle of bubbly, after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday refused a request by Planned Parenthood to rehear the case over its ban from the new Texas Women's Health Program (TWHP). Texas, it appears ... More >>

New England Journal of Medicine Says Texas' Family Planning Cuts Are A Public Health Disaster

It's been nearly a year since Texas legislators slashed the state's family planning funding, diverting $73 million to a variety of other programs. That was about two-thirds of the total family planning budget, and the conservative lawmakers who orchestrated the cuts were vocal about why they'd done ... More >>

At the Opening of a Houston Pregnancy Center, Rick Perry Pledges To Help "Make Abortion A Thing of the Past"

Governor Rick Perry, it may shock you to learn, is not such a big fan of abortion. Perry vowed some time ago to create a new, Texas-run version of the Women's Health Program, one that would ban doctors from discussing or "promoting" abortion with their patients. It would also explicitly bar Planned ... More >>

Meet Naomi Aberly, the Dallas Woman Who's Raised $1 Million For Obama

Uber-Republican billionaire Harold Simmons is Dallas' biggest player in the presidential money game, having pledged to pump $36 million into the election by November. But Dallas has a well-heeled partisan on the other side of the aisle in Naomi Aberly, and she's doing her part to make this the most ... More >>

Appeals Court Says Planned Parenthood Can Be Banned From the Women's Health Program, Rick Perry Rejoices

Texas' game of women's health pingpong continues. A panel of judges from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a preliminary injunction yesterday that had allowed Planned Parenthood to remain in the Medicaid Women's Health Program. In other words, PP is out. Again. The nonprofit was boote ... More >>

Ex-Komen VP Karen Handel is Writing a Memoir Called "Planned Bullyhood"

Karen Handel is back, and she's bringing 304 pages with her. Susan G. Komen For The Cure's ex-vice president of public policy, who resigned in February after an enormous flap over Komen's attempt to pull its funding from Planned Parenthood, is writing a tell-all, to be published in September by Howa ... More >>

Just When You Thought The Dust Had Settled, Susan G. Komen President, CEO Step Aside

A few months back, the Susan G. Komen For the Cure, the Dallas-based, Nancy Brinker-founded organization that has single-handedly made breast cancer a cause celeb, thrust itself squarely in the middle of the abortion debate when it announced plans to cut funding from Planned Parenthood. Brinker walk ... More >>

Now Texas Wants its Women's Health Program to Ban Doctors from Talking about Abortion

As Governor Rick Perry vows not to take any of that filthy federal money to expand Medicaid in Texas, state lawmakers may also have to find another $39 million next year to keep the Medicaid Women's Health Program alive. These days, the WHP has been going through some prolonged death throes. Texa ... More >>

Americans United For Life: Texas Is Pleasingly Abortion-Unfriendly, But It Could Do Better

Americans United For Life, one of the nation's largest anti-abortion advocacy groups, has released its annual report, Defending Life 2012, complete with an enthusiastic blurb from Governor Rick Perry. On the whole, they seem very pleased with Texas and its "aggressive legislative action" to restrict ... More >>

Texas Can't Kick Planned Parenthood Out of the WHP After All, Appeals Court Says

Earlier this week, Judge Jerry Smith of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals blocked a preliminary injunction that kept Texas from kicking Planned Parenthood out of the Women's Health Program. It looked as though that was the first step toward a decision allowing Texas to keep Planned Parenthood out ... More >>

Judge: Texas Can Kick Planned Parenthood Out of the Women's Health Program

When we said yesterday Planned Parenthood could remain part of the Texas's Medicaid Women's Health Program "for now," we didn't know "now" would last less than 24 hours. A Fifth Circuit appeals judge has overturned yesterday's preliminary injunction blocking Texas from kicking Planned Parenthood o ... More >>

Planned Parenthood Wins Battle in War on Women as Judge Puts Off Exclusion from WHP

The scuffle between Texas and the feds over women's healthcare was supposed to get real tomorrow, when Planned Parenthood was scheduled to be barred from being a provider for the state's Medicaid Women's Health Program. But earlier today, Federal District Judge Lee Yeakel granted the non-profit its ... More >>

The Strange Tale of Tucker Max and His Failed $500,000 Planned Parenthood Donation

For the past few days, several corners of the Internet have been all a-flutter over a recent piece on Forbes.com by a man named Ryan Holiday, who describes himself as a "strategist for big authors and big brands." Holiday apparently had tried to arrange a donation of $500,000 from one of his clien ... More >>

The Defunding of Women's Health Care in Texas May Force Rural Clinics to Close

We keep hammering away at this same general point, but really: It's been a terrible year for family planning providers in Texas. First the Legislature moved $73.6 million out of the state family-planning budget for the next two years . At the same time, they changed to a tiered funding structure tha ... More >>

The News Buries the Lede in the Komen Story

Just want to make sure you know what you're getting into if you count on The Dallas Morning News to tell you what's up. It's not that they won't. But you do have to deal with the social local filter. The New York Times this morning carries a story by Times staffer Natasha Singer under a headline, " ... More >>

Homeless Man Accused of Throwing Molotov Cocktails at State Sen. Wendy Davis' Fort Worth Office

On Tuesday night, state Senator Wendy Davis' staff announced that someone had set a small fire outside the door of her Fort Worth office using bottles filled with lighter fluid. The senator wasn't there at the time, and no one else was hurt during the incident, which badly scorched the door of the o ... More >>

Federal Medicaid Agency Lays Out Just How The Women's Health Program Will End

What prompted Governor Rick Perry's frenzied bout of outraged tweeting about the Women's Health Program yesterday? As much as we'd like to speculate that it was a bad batch of PCP (and will continue to do so privately, purely for our own amusement, not because it's at all true), it was actually one ... More >>

Planned Parenthood Director Turned Pro-Life Superstar Is Suing PP For Alleged Medicaid Fraud

As long as we're on the general theme of "unpleasant events that are somehow related to the Medicaid Women's Health Program," let's throw this one in there too: Abby Johnson, who was until a couple of years ago the director of a clinic that was part of Planned Parenthood of the Gulf Coast, is now su ... More >>

Texas Alliance For Life Executive Director Not Sure Why No One Is "Cheering For Rick Perry"

Pro-life groups in Texas are in an awkward position these days, as the Medicaid Women's Health Program fights for its life. On one hand, they celebrate anything that they perceive as a blow to Planned Parenthood (which Catholic Pro-Life Committee of North Texas Executive Director Karen Garnett once ... More >>

Eddie Bernice Johnson on Rick Perry: "I Don't Even Know This Governor Anymore"

Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, who worked as a nurse before heading to Washington, dropped by Martin Bashir's show on MSNBC to denounce Governor Rick Perry's stance toward Planned Parenthood (and to call Rush Limbaugh "un-American".) "I don't even know this governor anymore," the congresswoman says in ... More >>

Rick Perry Vows to Save the Medicaid Women's Health Program from the Evil Feds

Update, March 10: Federal Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced late Friday in Houston that federal funding to the WHP would be cut. She said the program will wind down over the next several months, and that the feds are considering funding Planned Parenthood directly. In r ... More >>

Rick Perry and State Health Commissioner Insist Obama Hates Women, Loves Abortion

A few days ago, we told you that Texas's Medicaid Women's Health Program appears to be on death's door, which could leave some 130,000 low-income Texas women without vital medical care. We also mentioned that Gov. Rick Perry's administration appeared eager to blame the program's end on the feds broa ... More >>

Medicaid Women's Health Program Is One Step Closer To Death

The Medicaid Women's Health Program provides some 130,000 Texas women with vital medical care: family planning, birth control, cancer screenings and annual exams. And for that, of course, it must die. That, at least, has long been the case as far as Republican lawmakers are concerned. And after last ... More >>

Maybe It's Time for Komen to Change Those Pink Ribbons to GOP Red

We still have to read between the lines to glimpse the bottom line on the Komen Foundation's attack on Planned Parenthood, but the slowly emerging truth of the matter doesn't bode well. Karen Handel, the Komen executive who resigned yesterday, has a weird talent for letting the cat out of the bag e ... More >>

Hours Before Protest Planned in Front of Susan G. Komen HQ on LBJ, Karen Handel Resigns

​For days now Nancy Brinker has said, over and over, that Karen Handel -- the one-time gubernatorial candidate from Georgia and Palin pal -- had nothing to do with Susan G. Komen for the Cure's decision to cut its funding to Planned Parenthood. Handel, who's Komen's senior vice-president for publi ... More >>

A MoveOn Petition, And a Really Tiny Protest, Outside Komen's LBJ Headquarters Today

It probably hasn't escaped the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation's notice that an awful lot of people are very, very unhappy with the organization lately. Just to drive the point home a little further, reps from MoveOn.org, CREDO Action and UltraViolet announced they'd be hand-delivering a Move ... More >>

Film Critical of Komen, Pink Ribbons, Inc., Opens in Canada Today. No U.S. Date Set Yet.

​Amidst all the ruckus, resignations and double-talking over Susan G. Komen for the Cure's politically charged move to pull its breast-cancer screening funding from Planned Parenthood, you should also be aware: Dallas-based Komen's actually the subject of a documentary that opens in Canada today t ... More >>

Nancy Brinker, Komen Foundation Fell Victim to the Great Texas Echo Chamber

​Wait, wait. We haven't finished the conversation yet about whether Rick Perry has embarrassed Texas so badly we can never again show our faces outside the state. Are you telling me now we've got to have the same conversation already about Nancy Brinker? What if people start connecting the do ... More >>

As Brinker Tries to Explain Komen's Split From Planned Parenthood, an Inside Account

As you know by now, locally based Susan G. Komen for the Cure has cut off its funding to Planned Parenthood, meaning it'll no longer help pay for mammograms for women who can't afford them; why, there's Nancy Brinker herself above, attempting to explain Komen's "new granting strategies" concerning i ... More >>

How One Man's Witch Hunt Made Komen Decide to Cut Off Grants to Planned Parenthood

Perhaps you've heard by now: The Dallas-based Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation (don't bother clicking the link; the site's not loading) will no longer be giving grant money to Planned Parenthood, a move Planned Parenthood of North Texas says comes after "anti-women's health groups have repeate ... More >>

Texas's New Sonogram Law Is Going Into Effect Immediately. As In: Right Now.

Just four days after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Rick Perry's favorite law -- the one requiring women to get a sonogram, listen to a fetal heartbeat and hear a verbal description from a doctor of the sonogram image before they can get an abortion -- is street legal, the court issue ... More >>

A Successful Health Program May End Thanks to Texas's Quest to Kill Planned Parenthood

ViaYou, sir, must not be a Texas legislator.​It's been a good 14 minutes since the state twisted its rusty knife into the already-wounded gut of women's healthcare. But fear not: There's a huge, ugly storm brewing between the state and federal governments over the Medicaid Women's Health Progr ... More >>

The Rising AIDS Epidemic Among Dallas's Young Poor People

Barbara Rios/Science Photo Library​The number of young people in Dallas contracting HIV and AIDS is increasing, KTVT-Channel 11 reported Monday, and those young people, ages 13 to 24, now make up 25 percent of all new diagnoses. And those stats were compiled before the state decided to gut fam ... More >>

The End of Family Planning in Texas

They say they defunded Planned Parenthood. But lawmakers' attack on family planning will cost Texas money, reduce access to healthcare and result in even more abortions.

Center for Reproductive Rights Has New Site For Lone Star Ladies and Other In Utero News

​Starting September 1, if you're a woman in Texas seeking an abortion, a few new things are going to happen at the doctor's office. You're going to be given a sonogram, have the image of the fetus described to you "in detail," and possibly be asked to listen to a fetal heart monitor (although you ... More >>

Arlington Rep. Bill Zedler Wants To Hear All About Your Abortion

Rep. Bill Zedler just has a few questions about your legal medical procedure.​In the latest piece of depressing women's health news from the Texas Legislature, The Dallas Morning News reported today that the House has voted to deny state funding to public hospitals that either perform "elective a ... More >>