College-aged students and low-income women could face obstacles to receiving reproductive services in the greater Charlottesville area, pending the outcome of controversial legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives.
The House passed an amendment to the federal budget Friday which would eliminate all federal funding to Planned Parenthood, an organization that provides medical services, abortions and contraception at more than 800 clinics across the nation.
Titled the Pence Amendment, the proposal, sponsored by Representative Mike Pence, R-Ind., was part of the federal spending bill that was passed by a vote of 240-185 with the aim of cutting Title X, the $317 million program that aids family planning.
If the amendment is enacted, the Charlottesville affiliate of Planned Parenthood still will operate because it does not receive federal funds, said David Nova, vice president for Planned Parenthood health systems.
"Throughout much of the South, the legislatures tend to be more hostile toward reproductive health care in general, and Planned Parenthood in particular," Nova said.
Although the Charlottesville center would be able to continue to provide many medical services, the amendment would target preventative care - such as cancer screenings, birth control and HIV testing - that accounts for more than 96 percent of Planned Parenthood services, Nova said.
"The legislation still will have an effect because it indicates that even no indirect dollars can be used for Planned Parenthood," he said. "We serve a fairly large Medicaid population. Women primarily, and some men, will come to us who because of their circumstances have no health insurance other than through Medicaid."
Medicaid offers state administered medical assistance for low-income individuals.
A significant portion of the Charlottesville center's clientele include both University and Piedmont Virginia Community College students, Nova said. University students likely would not be affected by the amendment, he added, but PVCC students who rely on Medicaid would no longer have access to Planned Parenthood services.
In a Feb. 11 letter addressed to House Speaker John Boehner, 100 members of Congress petitioned the need for an opposition to Pence's "efforts designed to undermine women's access to basic, preventative health care and the women's health providers they rely on in their communities."
House Republicans such as Pence champion the amendment as a victory against abortion.
Second-year engineering student Alex Reber, spokesperson for College Republicans, said the amendment is a matter of fixing the budget deficit.
"It's a much larger issue; this is just one organization out of many that will be impacted," Reber said. "I think the key issue is ... cutting the budget and saving a dollar where possible."
Nova said the debate is not about spending, adding that denying people access to Planned Parenthood services would result in more unintended pregnancies, thereby increasing the number of entitlement programs. Such a result actually would increase the federal deficit.
"This is not deficit reduction," he said. "It does not lessen the federal debt by $1 to try to deny funding to Planned Parenthood."
The legislation was passed in the context of recently released incriminating video footage that revealed Planned Parenthood employees aiding sex traffickers. The video, released by Live Action, a youth-led movement dedicated to ending abortion, showed a Planned Parenthood manager in New Jersey coaching a man and woman posing as sex traffickers on how to secure secret abortions by lying about age, according to a press release from Live Action.
The U.S. Senate is scheduled to deliberate the spending bill and its amendments Feb. 28. Isaac Wood, communications director at the U.Va. Center for Politics and a former Cavalier Daily opinion columnist, expressed doubts about the possibility of the bill passing the Senate.
"It would be unlikely to pass in the Senate because ... the Senate is controlled by Democrats," Wood said. "It boils down to abortion, despite the fact that the bill itself deals with other things. The argument is centered on abortion even though the actual language of the bill did not, simply because abortion funding is already prohibited"
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