Women struggling with cuts to family planning clinics

[Rose Siding]

Tanya Wilson is overdue for her birth control shot and doesn't think her car could make it to the nearest clinic, which is now an hour away in Amarillo.

Funding changes bring hard times to W. Texas family planning services


BORGER - Through her divorce and the struggles of raising three girls on her salary at the Sonic Drive-In, there was one thing in Tanya Wilson's life that came easy.

Every three months, Wilson drove to the Planned Parenthood in her Panhandle hometown to get a birth control shot for free, most times with little or no wait. It was a great relief for a 34-year-old woman who didn't want any more children but lacked money for a tubal ligation.

Suddenly in January, her relief turned to stress. Wilson was among hundreds of patients across 17 counties who learned that the clinic they relied on for birth control, annual exams, Pap tests, breast cancer screenings, sexually transmitted disease tests and other services was closing because of funding cuts triggered by two little-known provisions tucked into the state's budget last session.
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The new provisions have ignited a wildfire of protests from women's rights advocates and lawmakers who fear that the funding cuts have further eroded access to basic women's health care in a state that already ranks 45th in family planning, according to a recent study by the Guttmacher Institute.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/3748639.html