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THIS WEEK: For years, Texas lawmakers have prioritized defunding Planned Parenthood and boosting anti-abortion organizations over ensuring access to care. The results have been stark: Tens of thousands of poor Texans lost access to care, more than 80 family planning clinics closed and the state scrambled to create a replacement network of providers that its own data shows hasn’t been able to fill in the gap. Yet Republican state senators flatly denied these impacts this week while offering support for a new bill that further limits funds for Planned Parenthood. Instead, some GOP members of the Senate Committee on State Affairs said that the state’s women’s health network is more robust than ever, and data showing otherwise is simply “not accurate.” Meanwhile, it’s estimated that less than a quarter of women in Texas who need publicly funded contraception are getting those services.
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The Lede
The Interview: Mass Resistance
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- "Cowboy priest" Roy Snipes likes Lone Star beer, motorboats, big rescue dogs and preaching at the 120-year-old La Lomita chapel. Though Trump's border wall threatens to destroy or cut off the chapel, Snipes, 73, tells his parishioners, “as we clash with the powers that be, don’t let them make you mean.”
- In mid-February, Congress passed a border security deal that seems to have spared La Lomita from Trump’s wall, but Snipes still worries about his neighbors. The Observer spoke with him about the Valley, militarization and world history.
- Snipes calls the wall a symbol of fear and loathing. “I think years from now, if there is a wall, our grandchildren will say, ‘What made y’all think that was a good idea?’” Snipes said. “And if you love the river, you love nature. … The river is sacred. You’re desecrating not just God’s house but God’s river, which is the source of all kinds of healthy things — water, of course, but adventure, poetry, recreation, refreshment.”
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From the archives
Barred Care
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- In 2003, lawmakers slashed funding for community-based mental health care, leaving thousands of people who relied on the system suddenly ineligible. Many went into crisis and were picked up by police or wound up in emergency rooms, where they stayed briefly, stabilized, and were released, still unable to get treatment in the community. As people with mental illness filled the jails, counties like Harris were forced to act. They added mental health programs to their law enforcement agencies and jails, a humane move, but one that shifts costs from the state to local taxpayers and blurs the lines between institutions designed to punish and those meant to treat. That’s how the Harris County jail became the largest mental health facility in Texas. And that’s why many Texans can get better mental health treatment inside the jail than out of it.
- From Emily DePrang's 2014 feature: “Most of those patients live in the general population and get their psychotropic drugs alongside inmates taking blood thinners or insulin. But some stay here on the second floor, in the Mental Health Unit, an award-winning program that functions as a full psychiatric hospital within the jail. The unit can treat almost 250 inmates at a time for serious mental illnesses. All receive medication; some also attend therapy and visit with caseworkers who help them plan for life after release. Many leave the jail more stable and connected to social services than when they came in."
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What’s Happening at the Observer
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- We’re now accepting applications for summer 2019 internships! Two positions are available: one digital intern and one editorial intern (for cultural coverage). The deadline to apply is March 29.
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