Family Planning in Greater Minnesota

Entrenched in attempts to balance the budget, the MN legislature will likely cut from all funding areas.  Last week, the MN senate passed cuts to child protection services and no one in the GOP was able to say why kids were in the first round for cuts or how this would effect them. Are these cuts viable or will they just cause more problems down the road? No one seems to know. We can bet that family planning services will likely receive the same blind ax by the GOP controlled legislature.

Family planning works and saves taxpayers money. Every dollar spent on family planning services saves Medicaid $4.02. Are there any other programs that have that kind of return on investment?

In greater Minnesota, access to family planning services is exceptionally challenging. 60% of Planned Parenthood patients live in greater Minnesota and 64% of those patients live in poverty. How will the GOP justify eliminating, in many cases, the only health care their constituents see in a year? Many clinics are located in communities that lack access to adequate primary care services. Will the MN GOP continue to fully fund ineffective 'crisis pregnancy centers' (that spread misinformation about birth control) but cut funding for family planning services that give medically accurate information? Reducing funding for family planning services will only increase the health care disparity between rural and urban women and cost Minnesota taxpayers more in the long run.