Ask the Expert: Jessica Arons on the budget deal and women's health

Which provisions in the budget deal will affect women's health?

There are two provisions in Friday's budget deal that affect women's health. The good news is that a provision to de-fund Planned Parenthood was dropped. Instead, that measure will be debated in the Senate later this week and subject to an independent vote, which we expect to fail. That means Planned Parenthood will continue to receive some money from the federal government to provide critical safety net services like contraception, breast and cervical cancer screening, and STI prevention.

The bad news is that a rider was re-instated that will prevent D.C. from using its own local funds to cover abortion services for women enrolled in Medicaid. The ban had been lifted in 2009, but now it's back. This is bad news, both for women in D.C. who struggle to pay for the cost of an abortion and for all D.C. residents, who are being denied the sovereignty to decide for themselves how their tax money should be spent.

Why would these provisions be particularly harmful to low-income women and women of color?

In both cases, conservatives in Congress are attacking services that low-income women need and cannot afford on their own. Planned Parenthood is a safety net provider that serves low-income and uninsured women and men throughout the country in over 800 clinics. It is sometimes the only provider in a geographic area that accepts Medicaid patients or provides comprehensive reproductive health care services. In some communities, if federal funds were cut off for Planned Parenthood, there would be nowhere else for some women to go.

Abortion funding restrictions now affect a wide swath of women, but low-income women and women of color are disproportionately affected. Women of color are more likely to live in poverty, to be enrolled in a government health program, and to face health disparities that include higher rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion. This means that when the government fails to include abortion as a covered service, women of color are more likely to bear the brunt of these policies.

What can Congress do to protect women's reproductive rights as the negotiations move forward?

There were several other provisions that affect reproductive health that were under debate. The budget passed by the House zeroed out funding for Title X, our nation's family planning program. It also cut funding for the U.N. Population Fund, which provides family planning aid to nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs. And the budget would have reinstated a policy called the "global gag rule," which would deny family planning money to NGOs that used non-U.S. money to provide abortion care, to refer and counsel for abortion, or to advocate for changes to their own country's abortion laws.

None of these measures have to do with abortion funding; all of these proposals would cut off funds for contraceptive counseling and services and other services related to well-woman care. The Senate needs to ensure that none of these harmful provisions are included in the final budget.