Health Care

Family Planning & Women’s Health

Two million Texas women need publicly funded family planning.

Ensuring all Texans have access to family planning services so they can plan the timing and size of their families is critical to building equal economic and social opportunity. In addition, family planning helps women prepare for healthy pregnancies, improving the well-being of both women and their babies.

Background

Texas has a large unmet need for affordable family planning services: roughly 2 million Texas women need publicly funded family planning, and in 2019, our key state family planning programs served 291,000 Texans.

Texas made several ill-advised and politically motivated decisions that have reduced access to critical services. The family planning safety net in Texas is still diminished and recovering from:

  • dramatic budget cuts in 2011;
  • the closure of more than 80 clinics;
  • the exclusion of Planned Parenthood, which had been the state’s largest family planning provider;
  • large and failed grants made to an unqualified provider now under investigation; and 
  • the constant upheaval of programs.

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