Women's Health
Synopsis: Increase funding, access to care and protecting choice
A woman has the final say over her healthcare decisions - this is between herself and her doctor. It is unacceptable in this day and age, we even have to defend that. Women have the right over their bodies, period!
Our government should not interfere in women's decision about their health and families. I firmly stand with the good work Planned Parenthood has done, and refuse to let it become a political bargaining chip; I will not bargain with women's lives. Planned Parenthood has saved countless lives through its preventative care programs, which is the be only service that government pays for within Planned Parenthood today.
It is important to provide access to affordable and quality healthcare for all women. I will fight the recent efforts to weaken maternity care and contraception offered by the Affordable Care Act. I will also fight efforts to defund family planning programs to ensure that women have better access to indispensable family planning and preventive health services. I vouch to oppose any effort to overturn Roe v. Wade and rights it guarantees women over their bodies.
Read - The healthcare law protects women.
Texas has the highest maternal mortality rate in the country, while the United States has the highest rate among the developed nations. A report by a state maternal mortality task force stated that African-American women in Texas are much more likely to die of pregnancy-related causes in the year after birth than white or Hispanic women. That report came on the heels of research showing that Texas’ maternal mortality rate had doubled over a two-year period, and now exceeds that of anywhere else in the developed world.
We must do more to ensure a rapid decrease in this morbid trend. We must provide better access to care to women and must put a focus on the groups most inflicted by this. Women's health cannot continue to be treated as a bargaining chip by our politicians.