Kelsey Sheehy/MNS
Planned Parenthood supporters fight to keep their funding Thursday, as Congress scrambles to agree on a budget to avoid a government shutdown.
WASHINGTON – “Don’t take my birth control away.”
Kelsey Sheehy/MNS
Kevin Chick, 26, and Katherine Bisanz, 27, join hundreds of Planned Parenthood supporters rallying to keep the organizations funding. “It’s not a just a women’s issue,” Chick said. “It’s an everybody issue.”
Iowa native Kevin Chick, 26, held the hot-pink sign above his head as hundreds at the U.S. Capitol followed suit, sending a message to Congress: Leave Title X and Planned Parenthood alone.
The rally was part of the swirl of action on Capitol Hill as lawmakers attempted last-minute budget negotiations Thursday that would avert a shutdown of the federal government.
The negotiations could leave Planned Parenthood and organizations receiving Title X funding scrambling for new revenue streams.
“Title X is under scrutiny because some organizations, including Planned Parenthood, receive the funding for family planning services and also perform and promote abortion,” Republican Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley’s office said.
But Chick disagreed with Grassley’s assessment, saying the support for Planned Parenthood helps people who don’t wantg to consider an abortion.
Chick’s girlfriend, Katherine Bisanz, 27, received her birth control – an intrauterine device – from a Planned Parenthood office.
With a $700 price tag, the device was too expensive for Bisanz to afford, but a program for low-income women allowed her to get if free at Planned Parenthood.
“We’d have a hard time affording an IUD,” Chick said, “and much more of a hard time affording a baby, which would be the result of not having an IUD.”
Grassley’s office said he supports Title X, but he does not want it going to organizations that perform abortions.
The Title X grant program funds birth control, patient education, counseling, breast and pelvic exams, testing for sexually transmitted disease, HIV testing, counseling and prevention, breast and cervical cancer screenings, and pregnancy testing.
It cannot legally be used to perform abortions.
Planned Parenthood of the Heartland operates 26 health centers in Iowa. Fourteen of those, including the Cedar Falls location, offer either in-clinic abortions or the abortion pill RU-486.
Abortions account for two percent of services provided at Heartland Health centers, a representative said.
Still, some Planned Parenthood opponents argue cutting the organizations federal funding would force them to use donations and patient-generated revenue to provide services other than abortion.
A University of Iowa graduate, Bisanz now works in domestic violence support in Philadelphia. She said cutting Title X funding takes another rung out of the support ladder.
“They would lose a huge support system, and that would cause them to be less likely to rise above their situation,” she said.
Congress passed a budget proposal in February that eliminated all Title X funding and included an amendment to cut all federal funding for Planned Parenthood. The Senate voted down the same bill last month.
Voting by Iowa members of the House and Senate was divided down party lines, with Democrats opposing the cuts.