INSTITUTE INDEX: Defunding Planned Parenthood would worsen the South's public health crisis

By Sue Sturgis / March 17, 2017

As the U.S. region with the highest rates of unintended pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases and poverty, the South would be heavily impacted by the Republican proposal to bar Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood. (Map from the Guttmacher Institute.)

Amount in federal funding to Planned Parenthood that would be cut by a provision in the Republicans' Affordable Care Act repeal bill that bars payments to the reproductive health care provider from Medicaid, the public health insurance program for the poor: $390 million

Percent of Planned Parenthood's patients who access care through Medicaid and/or the Title X family planning program: 60

Number of patients nationwide Planned Parenthood sees in a typical year: 2.5 million

Number of people for whom it provides birth control annually: 2 million

Number of sexually transmitted disease tests and treatments it provides: more than 4 million

Percent of Planned Parenthood's patients who are African-American: 15

Who are Latino: 23

Who have incomes at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level: 75

Percent of Planned Parenthood health centers serving "health professional shortage areas, rural or medically underserved areas": 54

Rank of the South among U.S. regions with the highest rate of chlamydia: 1

Of gonorrhea: 1

Of syphilis: 1

Of HIV: 1

Of unintended pregnancy: 1

Of poverty: 1

Number of people diagnosed with HIV during an epidemic that broke out in rural Scott County, Indiana, after the Planned Parenthood clinic — the only local provider to offer free testing — was forced to close due to funding cuts: 181

After Texas defunded Planned Parenthood in 2011, percent decline in women on Medicaid using the most effective forms of birth control: 35

Factor by which the maternal mortality rate in Texas increased between 2010 and 2012, to levels not seen in other states: 2

Percent of voters who oppose the GOP proposal to defund Planned Parenthood: 75

Of the three Republican House members who voted against the GOP's Affordable Care Act repeal plan in a key committee vote held this week, number who represent Southern states: 3*

* Reps. Dave Brat of Virginia, Gary Palmer of Alabama and Mark Sanford of South Carolina

(Click on figure to go to source.)

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