Interview: College-Age Women Hardest Hit by Texas Health Cuts

Although it is hard to determine precisely how many young women in Austin or the rest of Texas lack meaningful access to health care, data recently released by the Census Bureau reflects that, once again, Texas has the highest rate of uninsured residents in the nation – and, at nearly 30%, the highest rate of uninsured women in the country, according to the National Women's Law Center – and that, nationally, more than 27% of all college-aged individuals (19-25, by federal standards) lack health insurance. (Accord­ing to city demographer Ryan Robinson, college-enrolled students make up 9.4% of the entire Austin metropolitan area, which includes San Marcos.) Mean­while, local rates of two of the most common sexually transmitted infections are highest among college-aged persons, and nationally, women 25 and younger account for 51% of all new STIs; in Texas, college-aged women annually account for a high percentage of terminated pregnancies. Those are the kinds of statistics that health care providers say make it all the more important for young women to have good information about and access to women's health services. Yet in Austin, access to family planning remains difficult, complicated greatly by limited access to comprehensive sex education statewide and more recently, drastic cuts to the state's family planning budget, leaving women … on their own to seek out information and to figure out how to afford – and where to find – basic care.