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Abortion: Government Penalizing Organizations That Provide Care and Referrals

Document Date: November 17, 2011

Abortion is a legal medical procedure and the government has no business intruding on a woman’s private and personal health care decisions. Yet, in the last year we have seen unprecedented attacks on organizations that provide, among many other health care services, abortion care or even mention abortion as part of their counseling services.

States around the country have passed laws defunding Planned Parenthood and preventing them from participating in public health care programs. We’ve also seen politicians manipulate laws- from tax credit programs to federal family planning funding policies- to undermine any organization that even mentions abortion. Politicians across the country are willing to sacrifice community family planning centers and even domestic violence shelters as collateral damage in their efforts to limit access to abortion care.

These cynical attempts to insert ideology into personal decisions between women and their health care providers put hundreds of thousands of families, including the uninsured, unemployed and underserved, at risk of losing essential health care services.

Key Resources
> Planned Parenthood of Indiana Inc., et al. v. Commissioner of the Indiana State Department of Health
> Judge Temporarily Blocks Kansas Law Restricting Federal Title X Funds
> Arizona Law Says Choose Between Donations and Providing Care to Women
> NYCLU and ACLU Stand With Planned Parenthood
> Sign the Pledge: I Stand In Support of Reproductive Rights!
> Attacks on Funding for Women’s Health & Reproductive Healthcare

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