Under the guise of deficit reduction, the GOP is actually pushing women out of the public sphere and back into the home, says The Nation’s Melissa Harris-Perry on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show. With Mike Pence’s bill to de-fund Planned Parenthood, or the proposal to drastically cut funding from the Head Start program, for example, Republicans are not only trying to nix family planning services but also steer women away from the workforce with compulsory motherhood, Harris-Perry writes in her latest column.

The attacks on family planning and abortion, Harris-Perry says, will actually lead to even more abortions and negative women’s health outcomes. Publicly-funded family planning services prevent more than a million unintended pregnancies each year and without these services, an estimated 400,000 additional abortions will be performed. While low-income women will undoubtedly bear the burden of the lack of reproductive services and unwanted pregnancies, many women, rich and poor, will still find a way to get abortions if this legislation passes, Harris-Perry says.

For more coverage on the attack on reproductive health check out Bryce Covert’s “With State Budgets Withering, Get Ready for the ‘Womancession” and Katha Pollitt’s “In It’s War on Choice has the GOP Gone Too Far?” Also, starting tomorrow, Sharon Lerner will be guest blogging on the consequences for women of the anti-choice policies of the new crop of Republican leaders.

—Sara Jerving