“The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.”
Willem de Kooning

That is the signature on my email and it’s true. Poverty is giant time suck. It’s a waste of time and resources and even money that could be better spent finding a better paying job or going to school or helping your kids with their homework. But instead, those of us who live in poverty spend most of our days just trying to get the basics covered; food, rent, utilities, medical treatment. And in my state, getting all those things covered (or at least alleviated a tiny bit)is about to get harder for poor women.

In order to balance the budget, Governor Gregoire is cutting the funding that pays for nurses in Welfare offices. The nurses provide annual exams, prenatal care, birth control and most importantly- pregnancy testing. Washington is one of the few states in the country that pays for abortions for women on Medicaid, and the income levels to qualify for Medicaid are higher if you’re pregnant. But you can’t qualify unless you have proof that you are pregnant from a medical provider. If you are poor and without health insurance, you can either go to Planned Parenthood, spend 10 dollars (after the $20 you’ve already spent getting a drugstore test), pee in a cup and get certification that you are in fact knocked up. Then you have to go to the Welfare office and apply. It’s expensive for someone making less than $800 a month.

Or you can go the Welfare office when the nurse is in, pee in that cup for free and save yourself $10 plus bus fare for several trips.