The Title X Family Planning Program is Under Attack!
The Trump administration has proposed sweeping revisions to the Title X family planning program, which provides federal funding to clinics that provide reproductive health services and preventive care to approximately 4 million low-income patients.
Here's how you can help!
1) Make your voice heard by submitting comments on the proposed rule.
CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT YOUR COMMENTS BY JULY 31, 2018
In addition to explaining how the rule would affect you and/or low-income patient you know, consider including the following points in your comments:
- Banning Title X providers from providing abortions on site, referring patients elsewhere for abortion care ( even if that’s what the patient wants), or offering information about abortion would exacerbate the financial and emotional hardships low-income women already face in obtaining timely abortion care.
- Allowing Title X providers to give biased and misleading counseling and to withhold information about all reproductive health care options, including medically approved contraceptive methods (such as birth control pills or IUDs) would deny patients the right to make informed decisions about their health.
- Imposing burdensome and unnecessary requirements on already financially stressed family planning clinics could result in clinic closures. The result would be to block patients who rely on Title X clinics — particularly women with low incomes, women of color and young women under 18 — from receiving life-saving services like cancer screenings, birth control, wellness exams and more.
The proposed rule was posted to the Federal Register on June 1, 2018. Full text is available here.
The proposed rule would undermine Title X by making three major changes to the program:
- First, it would ban Title X providers from providing abortions on site, referring patients elsewhere for abortion care (even if that’s what the patient wants) or offering information about abortion.
- Second, it would allow Title X providers to give biased and misleading counseling and to withhold information about all reproductive health care options, including medically approved contraceptive methods (such as birth control pills or IUDs). This would deny patients the right to make informed decisions about their health.
- Third, it would impose burdensome and unnecessary requirements on already financially stressed family planning clinics, potentially causing them to close and leave low-income patients without access to needed care.