



This post originally ran on Robert Reich’s web page.

The

Republican assault on Planned Parenthood is filled with lies and distortions,

and may even lead to a government shutdown.

The only

thing we can say for sure about it is it’s already harming women’s health.

For

distortions, start with presidential candidate Carly Fiorina’s contention at

last week’s Republican debate that a video shows “a fully formed

fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says,

‘We have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.’ “

Wrong. In fact, the anti-abortion group

that made that shock video added stock footage of a fully-formed fetus in order

to make it seem as if that’s what Planned Parenthood intended.

But as Donald Trump has

demonstrated with cunning bravado, presidential candidates can say anything

these days regardless of the truth and get away with it.

At least elected members of

Congress should be held to a standard of responsible public service.

Yet last Friday, the House voted 241-187 to block Planned Parenthood’s federal funds for a year.

This may lead

to another government shutdown. Funding for the

government runs out at the end of the month, and several dozen House

Republicans have said they won’t vote for a funding bill that includes money

for Planned Parenthood.

This is,

quite frankly, nuts.

A strong moral case can be made

that any society that respects women must respect their right to control their

own bodies.

There’s also an important economic

case for effective family planning.

Public investments in family

planning—enabling women to plan, delay, or avoid pregnancy–make economic sense

because reproductive rights are also productive

rights.

When women have control over their

lives they can contribute even more to the economy, better break the glass

ceiling, equalize the pay gap, and much more.

Consider Colorado’s highly

successful family planning

program. Over the past six years, the Colorado health department has

offered teenagers and low-income women free long-acting birth control that

prevents pregnancy over several years.

As a result, pregnancy and abortion

rates plunged—by about 40 percent among teenagers across the state between 2009 to

2013.

In 2009, half of all first births

to women in the poorest areas of Colorado occurred before they turned 21.

But by 2014, half of first births

did not occur until the women had turned 24. This difference gives young women

time to finish their education and obtain better jobs.

Nationally, evidence shows that

public investments in family planning result in net public savings of about

$13.6 billion a year—over $7 for every public dollar spent.

This sum doesn’t include the

billions of additional dollars saved by enabling women – who may not be

financially able to raise a child and do not want to have a child or additional

children – to stay out of poverty.

Despite what Republicans claim,

Planned Parenthood doesn’t focus on providing abortions.

In 2013, the most recent year for

which data are available, its services included nearly nearly 500,000 breast

examinations, 400,000 Pap tests, nearly 4.5 million tests for sexually

transmitted illnesses and treatments.

Planned Parenthood’s contraceptive

services are one of the major reasons we don’t have more abortions in the

United States.

The prestigious New England

Journal of Medicine calls Planned Parenthood’s contraception services one of “the

single greatest effort[s] to prevent the unwanted pregnancies that result in

abortions.”

Planned Parenthood’s services are

particularly important to poor and lower-income women. At least 78 percent of

its patients have incomes at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level.

Planned Parenthood gets around $450

million a year from the federal government. Most of this is Medicaid reimbursements

for low-income patients, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget

Office. The rest is mainly for contraceptive counseling, pregnancy testing and

other services.

Federal money can only be used for

abortion in rare circumstances.

Even so, over the last five years congressional Republicans have cut 10

percent of the Title X federal budget for family planning, which pays for

services such as cancer screenings and HIV tests.

And now they want to do away with

it altogether.

This never used to be a partisan

issue. After all, Title X was signed into law in 1970 by Richard Nixon.

Obviously, the crass economic

numbers don’t nearly express the full complexity of the national debate around

abortion and family planning.

But they help make the case that we

all benefit when society respects women to control their bodies and plan their

families.

The attack on Planned Parenthood is

not just morally wrong. It’s also economically stupid.