Thursday, June 21, 2012

Planned Parenthood on Mike Fitzpatrick

from the inbox:

Mike Fitzpatrick has a ZERO percent voting record on Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s scorecard. As someone who represents our moderate district in Pennsylvania, Fitzpatrick has no problem taking these extreme positions when it comes to women’s health. In spite of the broad public support for family planning, Fitzpatrick voted to defund Planned Parenthood, an organization that serves nearly three million people annually. The voters don’t want this, but Fitzpatrick voted to defund Planned Parenthood anyway.

In fact, polling as recent as March of this year, polling demonstrates a significant majority of voters in battleground states, including PA, support funding for Planned Parenthood.* A near consensus exists that women should have access to birth control, that insurers should cover it, and that the decision to use birth control is a private one. Voters decisively object to a wide range of attacks on women’s health care, and strongly continue to support Planned Parenthood – nearly two thirds (63 percent) of all voters oppose prohibiting Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funds to pay for birth control, maternity care, and cancer screenings.

Mike Fitzpatrick’s vote to defund Planned Parenthood is even more critical than many, as here in the 8th Congressional District, Planned Parenthood is the ONLY provider that receives such funds. Planned Parenthood is the ONLY provider of reproductive health care and preventive family planning services that accepts Medicaid and provides services not only to women who have private insurance, but to the large majority of our approximately 15,000 patients in Bucks County who come to us because of our sliding fee scale, based on family income. They come to us with support from these funds for life saving cancer screenings, general health screenings like blood pressure checks, sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment, HIV testing, and to get FDA approved methods of birth control.

If Mike Fitzpatrick truly cared about women, he wouldn’t vote to defund the ONLY organization in his district that provides essential health screenings and preventive care to thousands of women who can’t afford care any where else.

Planned Parenthood PA Advocates, Planned Parenthood’s statewide political arm, is pleased to join CREDO SuperPAC’s Take Down Fitzpatrick campaign to help point out Mike Fitzpatrick’s abysmal record on women’s health.

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