"When Ashley Smith arrived to testify before the Maine Legislature during a committee hearing last spring, she was terrified. "I was shaking like a leaf in the wind," she says. She told lawmakers that she was there in support of Maine Family Planning, a 50-year-old network of reproductive health clinics where Smith is a patient. State lawmakers were considering how to make up a funding shortfall from Washington, D.C. where Republicans in Congress aimed to cut off federal funding to clinics that provide abortion."
"Smith told the committee that she doesn't have health insurance and that Maine Family Planning's nonprofit clinics were her only source of health care. "In the last four years I've received care there, not once did I have an abortion," Smith testified. "I did, however, have access to STD and STI (sexually transmitted disease and infection) testing, referrals for thyroid testing and blood panels, pap smears, breast examinations, referrals for mammograms, and a premenstrual dysphoric disorder diagnosis. The last two I listed saved my life," she said."
Ashley Smith, a 36-year-old patient, testified that Maine Family Planning is her only source of health care and that she lacks insurance. The clinics provide STD/STI testing, thyroid testing referrals, blood panels, pap smears, breast examinations, mammogram referrals, and a premenstrual dysphoric disorder diagnosis; she said the mammogram referrals and the PMDD diagnosis saved her life. Lawmakers considered addressing a funding shortfall after Republican moves in Congress aimed to cut federal funding to clinics that provide abortion. The organization received one year of state funding but lost a year of Medicaid revenue, a roughly 20% funding hit.
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