AUGUSTA, Maine — Reproductive health care advocates and lawmakers are working to shine the spotlight on a bill that would provide funding for family-planning resources as part of an effort to secure access and care into Maine's future.
An Act to Improve Women's Health and Economic Security by Funding Family Planning Services was introduced by Sen. Theresa Pierce, D-Cumberland. If it passes, the bill would set aside more than $3 million of the state's general fund each year for family planning resources.
Advocates speaking Thursday in favor of the bill explained that family planning often refers to several different health services, such as infertility care, pregnancy testing, birth control access, treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, and that some people even rely on family planning providers as their primary care.
"Title X funds are tangled in a political tug of war and funding from the state has become stagnant for nearly a decade," Pierce said at a press conference.
Organizations including the not-for-profit Maine Family Planning said if the bill passes, it could help its clinics that offer reproductive care stay open more often, allowing them to provide care for more people.
"These are all clinics that are open one day a week, which is really not enough to provide access to the kind of sexual reproductive health care that our patients need," Maine Family Planning President and CEO George Hill said.
Hill also said the funding could help bolster the providers' newest mobile clinic it is working to launch—an attempt at reaching underserved corners of Maine.
However, several lawmakers have raised concerns in the past whether those funds may be used to cover abortion care. Others questioned the need for funds for providers like Planned Parenthood, which already receives state and federal funds.
"Ninety percent of what they take in is pure profit. They make plenty of money to fund all of these services on their own," Rep. Micheal Lemelin, R-Chelsea, said. "All we're asking as Republicans is for them to take care of the matter on their own."
Although backers of the bill previously stated at the bill's public hearing that it would not cover abortion care, a handful of Republicans within the Committee on Health and Human Services voted the bill down.