World Magazine

“I may be taking all the arrows right now, and we have endured vicious attacks, but pro-life groups are capable of this important work, and they will continue to do it,” Everett said.

Joe Pojman, executive director for the Texas Alliance for Life, hopes that message comes through despite The Heidi Group’s challenges with the state.

Healthy Texas Women provided care for 172,023 low-income women last year, a 30 percent increase from the year prior. Providers cannot provide abortions or have an affiliation with an abortion facility.

“The program has had sensational success in meeting the needs of low-income women,” Pojman said. “It has done far more than Planned Parenthood was ever doing for Texas women.”

Joe Pojman, executive director of Texas Alliance for Life, told me that, overall, the Healthy Texas Women program is flourishing. He rejected the common criticism among pro-abortion people that no amount of effort can replace Planned Parenthood.

Pojman pointed out that federally qualified health centers and certified physicians offices greatly outnumber Planned Parenthood centers, especially in rural areas. Dublin, Texas, a rural town of 3,605 people outside Fort Worth, has no Planned Parenthood facilities but boasts 57 Healthy Texas Women–participating providers. Austin has more than 100 certified Healthy Texas Women clinics, compared to three Planned Parenthood locations.

“By all measures, [the state is] serving more low-income women,” Pojman said. “They have more low-income women enrolled, they have more providers enrolled than ever before, and the state is spending funding in general on women’s health services at a historically high level.” He added, “At Planned Parenthood, a woman will not see a physician unless she is there for an abortion. So these women are typically getting much better care.”

Losing The Heidi Group, he said, is not going to hamper Texas’ efforts to redirect funding from abortion providers to other health centers.