Proving the "women's health" excuse is a dangerous myth:
From 2000 to the end of 2010, Texas’s estimated maternal mortality rate hovered between 17.7 and 18.6 per 100,000 births. But after 2010, that rate had leaped to 33 deaths per 100,000, and in 2014 it was 35.8. Between 2010 and 2014, more than 600 women died for reasons related to their pregnancies. No other state saw a comparable increase.
In the wake of the report, reproductive health advocates are blaming the increase on Republican-led budget cuts that decimated the ranks of Texas’s reproductive healthcare clinics. In 2011, just as the spike began, the Texas state legislature cut $73.6m from the state’s family planning budget of $111.5m. The two-thirds cut forced more than 80 family planning clinics to shut down across the state.
It might seem obvious to say Texas is big, but you really can't grasp the size until you try to drive your car from one point to another. I live between the Triangle and the Triad here in NC, and I can drive to the beach and back, or Asheville and back, in about 7 hours. It doesn't work like that in Texas, where it takes 8-10 hours just to get somewhere. And now, many women must travel that distance just to go to a clinic, which also means paying for 1-2 nights in a hotel. And make no mistake, several Republicans in the NC Legislature are looking to Texas for guidance on how to make that happen here:
http://ift.tt/2bbhPFK
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