Matching Items (2)
Description
Nearly seven decades ago, the US government established grants to the states for family planning and acknowledged the importance of enabling all women to plan and space their pregnancies, regardless of personal income. Since then, publicly-funded family planning services have empowered millions of women, men, and adolescents to achieve their childbearing goals. Despite the recognized importance of subsidized family planning, services remain funded in a piecemeal fashion. Since the 1940s there have been numerous federal funding sources for family planning, including the Title V Maternal and Child Health Services Program, Office of Economic Opportunity grants, Title XX Social Services Program, Title X Family Planning Program, Medicaid, and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, alongside state and local support. Spending guidelines allow states varying degrees of flexibility regarding allocation, to best serve the local population. With nearly two billion dollars spent annually on subsidized family planning, criticism often arises surrounding effective local program spending and state politics influencing grant allocation. Political tension regarding the amount of control states should have in managing federal funding is exacerbated in the context of family planning, which has become increasingly controversial among social conservatives in the twenty-first century. This thesis examines how Arizona’s political, geographic, cultural, and ethnic landscape shaped the state management of federal family planning funding since the early twentieth century. Using an extensive literature review, archival research, and oral history interviews, this thesis demonstrates the unique way Arizona state agencies and nonprofits collaborated to maximize the use of federal family planning grants, effectively reaching the most residents possible. That partnership allowed Arizona providers to reduce geographic barriers to family planning in a rural, frontier state. The social and political history surrounding the use of federal family planning funds in Arizona demonstrates the important role states have in efficient, effective, and equitable state implementation of national resources in successfully reaching local populations. The contextualization of government funding of family planning provides insight into recent attempts to defund abortion providers like Planned Parenthood, cut the Title X Family Planning Program, and restructure Medicaid in the twenty-first century.
ContributorsNunez-Eddy, Claudia (Author) / Maienschein, Jane (Thesis advisor) / Hurlbut, James (Committee member) / O'Neil, Erica (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Planned Parenthood, one of the United States' largest providers of reproductive health services, has campaigned for decades to secure women's reproductive rights in the political sphere. However, few scholars have written on the social and political history that preceded the general religious and Republican hostility toward the organization in the twenty-first century. Through Planned Parenthood's growth in the mid-twentieth century, both political parties and many religious organizations pushed for family planning and access to contraception as solutions to population growth and poverty. Arizona was used as a case study to examine the broader context of the shift in the ideas of political parties and religious organizations surrounding the reproductive rights movement from the start of the twentieth century until the 1980s. The historical trajectory of the shifting religious and political support for Planned Parenthood Arizona was demonstrated using both a literature review and archival research. Throughout the early 1900s, Republicans advocated for limited governmental intrusion into citizens' lives, which extended to women's reproduction, where contraception was seen as a private decision between a woman and her doctor. That changed in the late twentieth century when religious concerns exacerbated the political discussion following the legalization of abortion in 1973 and the appointment of Ronald Regan in 1981, one of the first outspoken pro-life presidents. Planned Parenthood faced increasing criticism from religious organizations and the Republican Party. The social and political history surrounding Planned Parenthood Arizona illustrates the interplay between politics and the reproductive rights movement throughout the twentieth century. The contextualization of major historical events during the development of Planned Parenthood Arizona gives insight into the current political and religious beliefs regarding the reproductive rights movement.
ContributorsNunez-Eddy, Claudia Margarita (Author) / Maienschein, Jane (Thesis director) / O'Neil, Erica (Committee member) / Abboud, Alexis (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution and Social Change (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05