In anti-abortion zeal Texas Republicans cut funds to family planning clinics, now scrambling to replace funding with realization those cuts may result in 24,000 additional births at a cost to taxpayers of 273 million.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

The fight to restore family-planning financing that was cut from the Texas budget in the last legislative session has taken a turn toward primary care. Republican state senators have proposed adding $100 million to a state-run primary care program specifically for women’s health services, an effort that could help avoid a political fight over subsidizing specialty family-planning clinics. 

“It’s a much better way to treat the women because they don’t just have family-planning issues,” said Senator Robert Deuell, Republican of Greenville, a family physician who has advocated an increase in primary-care services for women. 

Using taxpayer dollars to finance family-planning services has become politically thorny in Texas, largely because of Republican lawmakers’ assertions that the women’s health clinics providing that care are affiliated with abortion providers. In the fiscal crunch of 2011, the Legislature cut the state’s family-planning budget by two-thirds, with some lawmakers claiming that they were defunding the “abortion industry.” Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, found that more than 50 family-planning clinics had closed statewide as a result. 

Now, amid estimates that the cuts could lead to 24,000 additional 2014-15 births at a cost to taxpayers of $273 million, lawmakers are seeking a way to restore financing without ruffling feathers.

Oops, I guess perhaps Texas Republicans did not realize that the cost of allowing every possible human life to be born was so damn costly.

“There’s an advantage to guiding that money to the family planning, that preventive care piece, because that’s where the cost savings occur,” said Janet Realini, leader of the Texas Women’s Healthcare Coalition.

Yeah no kidding.

Of course Planned Parenthood could have told them that, except Texas cut funding to them, which is essentially what drove many of these clinics out of business.

Thankfully there may be some help coming to Texas through Obamacare. That will provide funding for family planning services and access to contraception, which clearly Texas is in dire need of receiving.

What's that you say? The Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, has rejected the Affordable Care Act?

Well fuck Texas then. Ya'll are just reaping what you done sowed.

Gee I wonder how many of those 24,000 births are to people whose skin might be less than lily white, and who are predisposed to vote Democratic? It is quite possible that decisions like this might hasten Texas's emergence as a solidly blue state much earlier than previously predicted.

Good job shit kickers!