Jeb Bush Defunded Planned Parenthood in Florida. Now It Ranks Terribly for Women’s Health
Here’s what happened: As it turns out, Bush did withdraw funding for the organization in 2001. Two years later, he declared himself the “most pro-life governor of modern times,” according to the Associated Press.
As governor, Bush cut $302,843 for family planning services for poor women through Planned Parenthood, the St. Petersburg Times reported in 2001.
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The aftermath: In a 2014 evaluation of dozens of health statistics, the Center for Reproductive Rights reports that Florida is tied with Oklahoma and Arkansas for the worst state for women’s well-being in the country.
Now, 25% of women in Florida are uninsured, a rate that comes second to Texas, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. More than 20% of women in Florida report being in fair or poor health, which ranks Florida the 13th highest among all states and territories, according to Kaiser. Meanwhile, 20% of Floridian women have no access to a personal doctor or health care provider. This is three percentage points higher than the national average. Florida also ranks 46th in the percentage of women (80.2%) ages 21 to 46 who have had a pap smear in the last three years.
More: Jeb Bush Defunded Planned Parenthood in Florida. Now It Ranks Terribly for Women’s Health
Political group makes five points about Jeb Bush’s record
This item refers to a bill often known as the “Scarlet Letter” law, which started as a 2001 reworking of Florida’s adoption regulations. The Legislature that year passed a bill that required single mothers who didn’t know who was the father of their child publish a newspaper notice prior to putting the child up for adoption.
The notice had to run once a week for a month, and had to list a detailed description of all the possible fathers, plus dates and cities where a sexual encounter resulting in conception may have taken place. This was originally designed to alert the child’s potential father the child was up for adoption, but amounted to forcing the mother to publish her sexual history in her hometown newspaper multiple times.
The bill passed the House and Senate by a wide margin. Bush objected to several parts of the bill in a letter to Secretary of State Katherine Harris — the bill’s own sponsor, Sen. Skip Campbell, D-Tamarac, lamented the final bill — but instead of using his veto power to kill the legislation, Bush let the bill pass without signing it.
Bush responded, according to MSNBC: “My views have evolved over time, but my views about the importance of dads being involved in the lives of children hasn’t changed at all. In fact, since 1995 … this book was a book about cultural indicators [and] the country has moved in the wrong direction. We have a 40-plus percent out-of-wedlock birth rate.”
Because a marriage certificate is magic, I guess.