Texas woman pokes holes in state-recommended alternatives to Planned Parenthood

Andrea Grimes, a pro-choice writer and activist, pokes holes in a state-sponsored database that supposedly offers hundreds of alternatives to Planned Parenthood in a video published at RH Reality Check on Friday.

As background, the state has forgone $40 million in federal assistance due to its efforts to defund Planned Parenthood.

"People in favor of a Texas-funded Women's Health Program that excludes Planned Parenthood as a provider frequently claim that there are plenty of other places that Texas women enrolled in the WHP can get the same or better reproductive health care that they get at Planned Parenthood," Grimes said in the video.

She goes through a series of rejections, including one from a colonoscopy clinic, which was listed in the state's database of women's health care providers for some unknown reason.

"Nearly six hours of those kinds of conversations later, I found 13 clinics or doctors that take the Medicaid Women's Health Program. Thirteen. Not 181. Why? Because 92 of the state's listings are duplicates. Others are radiology associates and labs and pediatricians and even closed clinics. Others just plain don't take Medicaid. At all," Grimes said.

"Trying to get low-income, quality reproductive health care in Texas, in a major metropolitan area like Austin, without Planned Parenthood is like trying to get a pap smear at a colonoscopy clinic. And I know because I actually tried," she concluded.

Watch the video, uploaded to YouTube by RH Reality Check on Sept. 7.