Tex. Lawmakers Near Deal to Restore Support for Women’s Health

Two years after slashing state funding for women’s-health and family-planning services, Texas legislators are quietly restoring the money through a bipartisan deal that has largely avoided the polarized abortion politics of the 2011 debate, The Texas Tribune writes.

The cuts arose from conservative lawmakers’ aim to exclude facilities affiliated with abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood from getting taxpayer funds. More than 100 clinics stopped getting state money and 56 closed, according to researchers at the University of Texas at Austin.

Tentative budget plans include family-planning spending that exceeds pre-2011 levels. Republican Rep. Sarah Davis, who brokered a bipartisan agreement to reverse the cuts, said it was necessary “to remove emotion” from the debate to restore health and family-planning services to low-income Texas women.