Conservative lawmakers in Texas worked to chip away at Planned Parenthood’s funding, creating a “tiered priority system” that ensured Planned Parenthood clinics would be the last to receive any Title X funding. But when faced with renewing the Women’s Health Program, which funds preventive care for low-income women using federal and state money, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials warned Texas that their plan to zero out Planned Parenthood violated the Social Security Act. And if Texas blacklisted Planned Parenthood, then HHS would cut off almost $40 million in Medicaid funds for Texas.

But Texas Health Commissioner Tom Suehs did just that, finalizing the push to defund Planned Parenthood. Last month, he signed a rule that “formally bans Planned Parenthood clinics and other ‘affiliates of abortion providers’” from receiving funds from the joint state-federal Women’s Health Program (WHP) — losing $9 from the federal government for every $1 Texas put into the program.

Now, about 130,000 Texas women will lose their access to preventive health care, and women in the state rallied against the rule, which goes into effect on March 14, to voice their anger:

“I just got fed up,” [Marcia] Ball said. “I suspected there were many people like me, including Christians and people of all ages, who think it’s a mistake to defund low-income women’s basic health care. All this defunding for political gain is hurting hundreds of thousands of low-income women.”

The rally drew progressive political activists, local musicians, state representatives and women’s health clinic employees. Passing cars honked in support as protesters held up signs with slogans such as “Don’t Mess with Texas Women” and “I’m a Christian and I Believe in Science, Birth Control, and Tolerance.”

“I’ve been protesting [for women’s rights] since the ’60s and ’70s, when I was at UT,” said Anita Quintanilla. “I thought by the ‘80s, we wouldn’t have to be protesting for women’s rights. I have a 21-year-old daughter, and I hoped she wouldn’t have to worry about women’s rights. I’m fighting for her.” [...]

State Rep. Elliott Naishtat, D-Austin, was among those who helped Ball with the rally.

“This will definitely send a signal to members of the Legislature and Congress that it’s going to be hard to pass these cuts and policy changes in the future without facing opposition from women and their friends,” Naishtat said.

A spokeswoman for Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) laid the blame at the feet of the Obama administration. “Although federal law allows the states to set the criteria for qualified providers in Medicaid programs, now the Obama Administration is holding the WHP hostage because Texas state law does not fit its pro-abortion agenda,” the spokeswoman said. Other conservatives have suggested that if Planned Parenthood really cared about women’s health, then it would leave WHP so the program could continue providing health care through other providers.

But it’s the poor women of Texas, at risk of losing their access to affordable health care, who really will suffer without this program. “Texas Republicans never miss an opportunity to throw the most vulnerable Texans under the bus so that they can pick a fight with the federal government,” said Rebecca Acuña, a spokeswoman for the Texas Democratic Party.

Accusing the GOP of waging a war against women, the Democratic women of the Georgia senate staged a walk out yesterday to protest two measures that would significantly limit access to abortion services and contraception. The bills, passed yesterday, prohibit state employees from using their state health benefits to pay for abortions and stipulate that “employees of private religious institutions have no right to demand that their insurance policies pay for contraceptives, as the Obama Administration wants to require.”

“What we’re seeing here,” Sen. Nan Orrock said, “is an ideological battle that’s being waged to make women a target, to take our access to our Constitutional right of privacy and also our ability to make our health decisions with our doctor and our own best judgment. And it’s government intruding into that decision. The origins of this bill are ideological, it’s coming from an extreme, right, fundamental point of view. And that doesn’t bode well for women in Georgia.” Watch a local news story:

Republican Sen. Josh McKoon insisted that “the war that’s being waged is on a religious minority in this country that has strong beliefs” and predicted that both measures would pass the House, where the GOP has control.

The Guttmacher Institute estimates that “about 430 abortion restrictions that have been introduced into state legislatures this year, which is pretty much in the same ballpark as 2011.” Follow the key bills moving through the states, here.