Governor to Cut Texas Women's Health Funds Over Abortion

Texas - The federal government will withdraw funding for a Texas program providing more than 100,000 poor women with birth control and other health services because Planned Parenthood clinics are not allowed to participate, a Health and Human Services spokeswoman said on Friday.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the decision in Houston on Friday, prompting a furious response from Texas Governor Rick Perry, who called it an "egregious federal overreach."

At the heart of the dispute between the administration of President Barack Obama and Texas is the divisive issue of abortion.

The Texas legislature last year voted to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood because the network of women's health clinics performs abortions. The federal government says that this violates rules of Medicaid, the health program for the poor.

Some 130,000 low-income Texas women who get free exams and contraceptives through Medicaid could lose those benefits as a result of the dispute.

The program provides free birth control and annual exams to women of reproductive age who do not qualify for the regular Medicaid program for the poor. The federal government pays 90 percent of the cost and Texas puts up about $4 million a year.

Wisconsin, North Carolina, Tennessee and Indiana all have joined Texas trying to block Planned Parenthood from receiving taxpayer money in the last year. Several other states, including Ohio, Oklahoma and New Hampshire, are considering similar moves.

While public funds do not pay for abortions, critics of Planned Parenthood argue that hiring the organization to provide family planning to poor women helps the organization stay afloat and thus indirectly supports abortion services.

The Texas funding cut prompted Planned Parenthood to shut down 11 clinics in the state.

Perry said the decision by the Obama administration was "politically motivated," and said it was an affront that Sebelius had not informed the state of Texas before announcing the move to the press.

A spokeswoman for Sebelius had no comment beyond confirming the decision to cut off funding to Texas.
The abortion fight is the latest of a string of disputes between Obama's Democratic administration and the Republican-dominated Texas state government. The two sparred last year over disaster aid for Texas after devastating wildfires and environmental regulations Texas opposes.

States Slash Birth Control Subsidies as Federal Debate Rages

United States - Even as a national debate rages over contraception insurance, tens of thousands of low-income women and teenagers across the United States have lost access to subsidized birth control as states slash and restructure family planning funds.

Montana and New Jersey have eliminated altogether their state family planning programs. New Hampshire cut its funding by 57 percent and five other states made more modest program trims.

But the biggest impact, by far, has been in Texas.

State lawmakers last fall cut family-planning funds by two-thirds, or nearly $74 million over two years.

Within months, half the state-supported family planning clinics in Texas had closed.

The state network, which once provided 220,000 women a year free and low-cost birth control, cervical cancer tests and diabetes screenings, will now serve just 40,000 to 60,000, officials said.

Another 130,000 low-income Texas women who get free exams and contraceptives through Medicaid could lose those benefits by month's end, due to a dispute between the state and federal governments over whether Planned Parenthood should be allowed to serve women on that program.

At the People's Community Clinic in Austin, the cuts mean that many low-income patients, except the very poorest, are now charged for contraception that used to be free: $5 for a dozen condoms; $10 for a month of birth control pills; $225 for an IUD.

"I have no clue what I'm going to do," said Rhetta Pope, 22, of Austin. A stay-at-home mother of two, she lives off disability payments of less than $1,500 a month.
Pope said after paying basic living expenses, she has so little left she scrimps on electricity by keeping the lights off and takes her laundry to an aunt's house. She can't imagine how she would pay for birth control.

"I guess I'm going to have to stop using it because I don't have the money," Pope said. "I'm pretty shook up. I really am."

SAVINGS IN DOUBT

Texas legislators who backed the 66-percent family planning cuts say they had no choice - the state budget was in crisis and many worthy programs suffered.

But a budget board analysis concluded the cut would actually cost Texas taxpayers more than it saved.

The board projected that women unable to get low-cost birth control would deliver 20,500 additional babies - costing state and federal taxpayers $231 million in prenatal, maternity and infant care. The state's share would be close to $98 million - significantly more than the family planning cut savings.

State Representative Wayne Christian, a Republican, acknowledged that the cuts might be counterproductive "if you look at it from a financial cost, perhaps."

But he disputed the notion that additional babies were a cost burden. "We value a human life more than just the cost," he said.

In general, he said, the state should not try to deter births by widely distributing free contraception. If women who want birth control cannot afford it, he said, they should first seek help from families or communities.

"I'm sorry," Christian said, "but there's this thing called individual responsibility."

Some women have found ways to pay for the care they once received free, but many have not.
After losing much of its state family-planning grant, the Parkland Health & Hospital System in Dallas in January began charging most patients a flat $25-per-visit fee.

In the first two weeks of the policy, 362 women cancelled appointments because they could not make the co-pay. Only 20 percent found the money to get care within a week or two, hospital officials said.

Another 20 percent were referred to one of the two Parkland locations still providing free services. Those sites are now so busy, the first available appointment at the Irving Women's Health Center is August 21.

Most of the remaining women never came back for care after learning about the co-pay, said Paula Turicchi, a Parkland senior vice president.

BLOCKING TAXPAYER DOLLARS

In several states, including Texas, questions about birth control access are now entangled with the politically explosive abortion debate.

Planned Parenthood is the nation's largest abortion provider, with about 330,000 procedures a year. It also runs a network of urban and suburban clinics offering birth control, gynecological exams and care for sexually transmitted diseases.

The organization gets about a third of its revenue, $360 million in 2009, from government grants to provide those services to poor women.

In the past year, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Tennessee, Indiana and Texas all have moved to block Planned Parenthood from receiving taxpayer money. Several other states, including Ohio, Oklahoma and New Hampshire, are considering similar moves.

While public funds don't pay for abortions, critics of Planned Parenthood argue that hiring the organization to provide family planning to poor women helps the organization stay afloat and thus indirectly supports abortion services.

The Texas funding cut prompted Planned Parenthood to shut down 11 clinics. It also has jeopardized a $40 million family-planning program run as a Medicaid extension.

The program provides free birth control and annual exams to 130,000 low-income women of reproductive age who don't qualify for regular Medicaid. The federal government pays 90 percent of the cost; Texas puts up just $4 million a year.

About 40 percent of women in the Texas program get subsidized care from Planned Parenthood clinics, but a new state law blocks those clinics from participating. The Obama administration has said that violates federal Medicaid rules. If neither side compromises, the program will likely close by the end of March.

That infuriates Jonee Longoria, a single mother in Houston who relied on the program for free services for several years as she put herself through college. "I had one child living in poverty and I didn't want another," Longoria said.

She now works for a social service agency and refers many clients to the program for contraception. Without it, she said, "where would they go?"

Advocates of defunding Planned Parenthood say they regret any service disruptions for poor women. But they call it a necessary price to pay to take a moral stance on abortion.

"We're just doing what we think is best," said Joe Pojman, executive director of Texas Alliance for Life, which opposes abortion.

Supreme Court Rejects Emergency Carp Measures

By John Flesher

Traverse City, Michigan - The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to order emergency measures that might prevent Asian carp from reaching the Great Lakes, despite a warning that the exotic fish pose a "dire threat" to the region's environment and economy.

Michigan and four neighboring states wanted the Army Corps of Engineers to install nets in two 

Chicago-area rivers and to expedite a study of permanent steps to head off an invasion by bighead and silver carp, which have advanced up the Mississippi River and its tributaries to within 55 miles of Lake Michigan. Scientists say if the large, prolific carp spread widely in the lakes, they could starve out native species and devastate the $7 billion fishing industry.

The justices' ruling, which was issued without comment, was their fourth rejection of pleas by the states for interim steps — including closure of navigational locks in the Chicago waterways — while their lawsuit against the corps is pending in a federal district court.

"It is our duty to aggressively fight to protect the Great Lakes from invasive species," Michigan Attorney Bill Schuette said. "So while I'm disappointed, we will continue forward on all fronts."

Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania have joined Michigan in demanding faster action against the carp, which eat vast amounts of tiny plants and animals at the base of the food chain.

The Corps of Engineers says it will complete in 2015 a study of ways to prevent migration of fish and other species between the Great Lakes and Mississippi watersheds. The five states and environmental groups say that's not quick enough, because it could take many additional years to carry out the study's recommendations.

They advocate placing barriers in Chicago-area waterways to cut a link between the watersheds created more than a century ago when engineers reversed the flow of the Chicago River to flush the city's sewage toward the Mississippi. A recent report by groups representing Great Lakes states and cities proposed three methods for doing so, with estimated costs as high as $9.5 billion.

Because permanent separation could take nearly two decades to complete, the states are suing for short-term actions. Their petition to the high court requested installation of block nets in the Little Calumet and Grand Calumet rivers along with quicker completion of the corps study.

Federal officials say the nets would do more harm than good and the study timetable is necessary because of its complexity.

The Obama administration has devoted more than $100 million to shielding the lakes from the carp and recently announced plans to spend $51.5 million this year. Plans include operating and monitoring an electric fish barrier near Chicago, stepped-up commercial fishing in the area, and field testing new strategies such as high-pressure underwater guns and pheromones that could lure carp into lethal traps.

Chicago business interests oppose separating the watersheds and closing the locks, which they say would disrupt commercial barge and pleasure boat traffic.

"Thankfully, the Supreme Court came down on the right side of this issue," said Mark Biel, spokesman for a group called UnLock Our Jobs. "Suitable and effective steps are being taken to ensure we protect the lakes. Unfortunately, those who have used this issue for their own political agendas will continue to push for devastating actions that prevent the Great Lakes region from working together on a comprehensive solution."

Joel Brammeier, president of the Chicago-based Alliance for the Great Lakes, said the court ruling was "not so much a setback as a way station on the road to separation. We've got to keep our eye on a long-term outcome."

Odd Stories: Mickey Mouse Causes Shutdown of School.

In my off time, I'm Pedobear!

Canfield, Ohio - After a brief appearance at a school, the disappearance of Micky Mouse on  Valentine's Day caused an elementary school to temporarily shut down.


The lock-down was the result of a parent's unannounced appearance at her daughter's classroom as the famed Disney character. Although she filled out the proper procedure by singing in at the office when she arrived, the principal was unaware of her visit.  When he was told about Mickey Mouse showing up at the school, then disappearing, he was alarmed.


“It was a case of, Mickey Mouse was here, and then he was missing. Our building principal called our school resource officer and the building went into lock-down as a precaution...We do practice lock-down drills,[but] this is the one time we’ve had to put it in effect,” C. H. Campbell Elementary School superintendent Dante Zambrini said. He added the lock-down went well, and he is met with the school’s assigned police officer  to discuss it.

“We do practice lockdown drills,” Zambrini said. “This is the one time we’ve had to put it in effect.”

Odd Stories: Mom in Central China Gives Birth to 15 Pound Baby

Beijing - A mother in central China has given birth to a 15.52 pound (7.04 kilogram) baby, possibly the largest newborn on record since the country's founding in 1949.

 

The state-run Tianjin Post said Tuesday that the 29-year-old mother in Henan province gave birth to the boy Saturday by cesarean section. It said delivery took just 20 minutes and both mother and the baby, named Chun Chun, are doing fine.

The paper said Chun Chun's parents are average size and there was nothing unusual about his mother's pregnancy or diet.

The paper said it wasn't immediately clear whether Chun Chun made China's record books.

Guinness World Records says the heaviest newborn ever recorded was born to an Ohio woman in 1879 and weighed 23.7 pounds (10.77 kilograms).

Odd Stories: Orangutan Gets Birth Control Implant

Cleveland – Veterinarians got a lesson at Cleveland Clinic from a physician when it comes to installing a birth-control device in an orangutan.

One doctor, Judith Volkar, had a major hand in it. After she showed several vets how to put in a new birth-control device, she was found herself watching as Albert Lewandowski did the procedure on an orangutan named Kitra. Nobody in the United States has ever done it before to an orangutan.

Cleveland Metroparks Zoo curator Geoffrey Hall said the zoo may want Kitra to breed someday, but at the moment they don't want her to do so, which led to this surgery before she was introduced to four other orangutans.

Kitra was awake within two hours with no apparent side-effects.

Odd Stories: Pie Fairy Says Farewell to a Friend

Willis "Bill" Welch with one of The Pie Fairy's treats.

Columbus, Ohio – A man somewhat famous for his friend only known as “The Pie Fairy” has revealed he won't be getting any more of the pastry treats.

Willis Welch, who still doesn't know who exactly is responsible for leaving him pies for the last 35 years, received a note with the desert stating “It has been a great ride. Still not telling you who I am yet, but my wings are shorter now and I am a little too fat to fly anymore. But I still love you!!”

All he knows about the person who has been treating him for three-and-a-half decades is the person knows him well enough to know pecan pie is his favorite. His story became national news after it appeared in a book in 2006.

He used to think his daughters were at the bottom of it but stopped after the consistently denied they had anything to do with it. Even though his daughters asked him not to eat the pies, Willis' sweet tooth kept winning out and he would eat them.

The pies started appearing in 1976 and followed him after he moved to Reynoldsburg.

The Pie Fairy seems to have a good sense of humor. After he got national recognition in 2006, the next year the Fairy left him a tiny pecan torte and a note chiding him for keeping the publicity for himself. The next day however Willis got a new full-sized pie with a note reading “Just kidding.”

The final note concluded “Won’t say bye or so long, just . . . keep on keeping on!”

Ohio Earthquake Was Not a Natural Event, Expert Says

By Kim Palmer


Ohio - A 4.0 magnitude earthquake in Ohio on New Year's Eve did not occur naturally and may have been caused by high-pressure liquid injection related to oil and gas exploration and production, an expert hired by the state of Ohio said on Tuesday.

Ohio's Department of Natural Resources on Sunday suspended operations at five deep well sites in Youngstown, Ohio, where the injection of water was taking place, while they evaluate seismological data from a rare quake in the area.

The wells are about 9,000 feet deep and are used to dispose of water from oil and gas wells. The process is related to fracking, the controversial injection of chemical-laced water and sand into rock to release oil and gas. Critics say that the high pressure injection of the liquid causes seismic activity.

Won-Young Kim, a research professor of Seismology Geology and Tectonophysics at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday that circumstantial evidence suggests a link between the earthquake and the high-pressure well activity.

"We know the depth (of the quake on Saturday) is two miles and that is different from a natural earthquake," said Kim, who is advising the state of Ohio.

Data collected from four seismographs set up in November in the area confirm a connection between the quakes and water pressure at the well, Kim said.

"There is circumstantial evidence to connect the two -- in the past we didn't have earthquakes in the area and the proximity in the time and space of the earthquakes matches operations at the well," he said.

A spokesman for Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich, a strong supporter of oil and gas exploration in the state, said Ohio could announce a preliminary decision whether to continue the suspension of the wells as early as Wednesday.

The state was already looking into the cause of earlier seismic activity from 10 previous earthquakes, beginning in March, 2011.

According to Kim, this is not the first time Ohio tremors have been linked to human activities. "We have several examples of earthquakes from deep well disposal in the past," Kim said.

A quake of 4.2 magnitude in Ashtabula, Ohio, on January 26, 2001, was believed to be due to deep-well injection, he said. And in 1987 there was an incident with a correlation to high pressure deep well injection, he said.

There are 177 so-called "class two" deep wells in Ohio, according to Tom Stewart, executive vice president of Ohio Oil and Gas Association. They all operate under federal guidelines spelled out by the Clean Water Act.

There is no evidence that the wells in Youngstown were operating at higher pressures than allowed, Stewart said.

"We haven't seen anything from anyone at (the state agency) that would lead us to believe that the well was not operating properly," he said.

Kim said that even though the wells have stopped pumping water into the rock, the area might not have experienced its last earthquake. "It could take a couple of years for the earthquakes to go away. The migration of the fluid injected into the rock takes a long time to leave," Kim said.

Ohio's Democratic Senator, Sherrod Brown, said the quick response by the state shows it is a serious issue.
"There are things we need to know about drilling and earthquakes," Brown told Reuters on Tuesday.

Brown said he supports new energy exploration that brings jobs to the state but has questions about how companies will handle fracking and wastewater disposal. "They have got to answer the question of what they are going to do with the waste just like nuclear power," Brown said.

Avoiding Fracking Earthquakes: Expensive Venture By Edward McAllister

United States - With mounting evidence linking hundreds of small earthquakes from Oklahoma to Ohio to the energy industry's growing use of fracking technology, scientists say there is one way to minimize risks of even minor temblors.

Only, it costs about $10 million a pop.

A thorough seismic survey to assess tracts of rock below where oil and gas drilling fluid is disposed of could help detect quake prone areas.

But that would be far more costly than the traditional method of drilling a bore hole, which takes a limited sample of a rock formation but gives no hint of faults lines or plates.

The more expensive method will be a hard sell as long as irrefutable proof of the link between fracking and earthquakes remains elusive.

"If we knew what was in the earth we could perfectly mitigate the risk of earthquakes," said Austin Holland, seismologist at the Oklahoma Geological Survey. "That is something that we don't have enough science to establish yet."

A 4.0 New Year's Eve quake in Ohio prompted officials to shut down five wells used to dispose of fluid used in the hydraulic fracturing process. That comes less than a year after Arkansas declared a moratorium due to a surge in earthquakes as companies developed the Fayetteville Shale reserve.

Experts say the quakes do not necessarily appear to be caused during the process of fracking, a controversial extraction technique that involves injecting chemical-laced water and sand into shale rock to release oil and gas.

Instead, it's the need to dispose of millions of gallons of contaminated fluid extracted from each drilling site, either to be recycled or trucked to a separate location to be pumped deep underground.

The pressure caused by water pushed far below the surface for a long period has been linked to an increase in seismic activity, as water enters fissures and lubricates fault lines which can cause earthquakes in places otherwise free of them.

"It basically greases the wheels of the earthquake process that is there naturally and causes the earthquakes to occur at lower stress levels than they might normally have needed to occur," said Larry Brown who chairs the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Precautions can be taken to mitigate risks of earthquakes near disposal wells, such as lowering injection pressure and avoiding areas with a history of seismic activity, though none of these guarantee total safety.

QUESTIONED LINK
On paper, the link between fracking and quakes is compelling. As the oil and gas industry embarked on a massive expansion of hydraulic fracturing across Arkansas, Pennsylvania and elsewhere, the number of earthquakes in areas where wastewater was injected back underground surged tenfold.

Data from Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, which had seismographs set up in Youngstown on Saturday, concluded that the earthquake occurred at the same depth as the well, about 2 miles below the surface.

"There is a relationship between when they started to inject into the well and the earthquakes started near the bottom of the well so it is unlikely to be coincidental," said John Armbruster at Lamont-Doherty.
But some researchers say the link has not been proven.

In Oklahoma, which saw a tenfold increase in earthquakes since 2009 to over 1,000, officials at the Oklahoma Geological Survey (OKGS) say more proof of a link to fracking is needed.

"The strong correlation in time and space as well as a reasonable fit to a physical model suggest that there is a possibility these earthquakes were induced by hydraulic fracturing," according to a OKGS report released in August. "However, the uncertainties in the data make it impossible to say with a high degree of certainty."

Ohio's Earthquakes Linked to Fracking

The town of Youngstown, Ohio has went through it's eleventh earthquake in the months since fracking began in the area.  Geologists are saying they have little doubt about the link, which is also confirmed by the USGS and Columbus's 10TV.com via SinceDutch.


On November I wrote about the ties to fracking in Great Britain and I admit I was somewhat skeptical.  However now it seems like those ties can also be found here in the United States.  I don't know what other kind of warning would be needed for the people, especially the leaders, of this country to get the hint.  Fracking not only makes us able to light our water on fire or make people phenomenally sick, but is proven to be the reason why places like Arkansas, Maine, Oklahoma are experiencing more earthquakes than they should.

I suppose it won't be until we have them more and more often, our drinking water is useless, and smoking inside of a house is dangerous for everyone that we realize - too late for any of us unfortunately - that fracking is definitely not the way to go when it comes to a viable energy solution.

Here's the video from SinceDutch that shows a direct correlation between fracking and Ohio's earthquakes.





Update: Ohio shut down five fracking facilities owned by Northstar Disposal Services LLC as a precautionary measure.  

Ohio's Department of Natural Resources deputy director Andy Ware said "[according to a geologist] there is a strong chance there is a fault line very close to the site of the well."