The latest news, analysis and opinion on the state of low-income women and their families from Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity. For the week ending 4/22/2011: How women’s opportunities to escape from poverty are stifled. Why budget cuts will compound the effects of the recession.
Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity, a national foundation-led initiative, is excited to collaborate with The Women’s Foundation to bring you the latest news and analysis on women and poverty. Spotlight is the go-to site for news and ideas about fighting poverty.
Here’s this week’s news:
• New York Times op-ed contributor Jill Lepore, a Harvard history professor, laments that state and federal cuts in public education and family planning services will stifle women’s opportunities to escape from poverty.
• A Politico op-ed piece argues that the budget cuts in education, social programs, and women’s health funding proposed by Congress will only compound the devastating effects of the Great Recession on the American middle class.
• The Indianapolis Star reports that the Indiana State Senate voted to cut off support to Planned Parenthood as part of an anti-abortion bill; about $3 million in taxpayer money goes to Planned Parenthood of Indiana annually to pay for services such as birth control, cancer screenings, and tests for sexually transmitted diseases.
• Betty Cockrum, president of Planned Parenthood of Indiana, tells the Indianapolis Star that the end of state funding could seriously jeopardize eight health centers that serve low-income Hoosiers across the state and would also keep Medicaid clients from visiting any of Planned Parenthood’s 28 Indiana locations.
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The Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity team
