NARAL Statement on GOP’s Vote to Rescind Pro-Choice Title X Regulation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 16, 2017

Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, issued the following statement in response to the vote by the GOP-controlled House of Representatives’ to reverse the Health and Human Services Title X regulation:

“I dare the GOP to justify today’s actions under the guise of serving women’s health and safety. They can’t. Their obsession with denying women access to reproductive healthcare is grounded in a need to control women and keep us in ‘our place.’ That desire starts at the top with President Trump and Vice President Pence and permeates the decisions of every anti-choice GOP lawmakers.

“Today’s action by Republicans in Congress targets the right of some of our country’s most vulnerable women to access basic preventive care and family planning services at their trusted healthcare provider. These women already face significant obstacles getting health services and today’s action will make the road to accessing care much more challenging by allowing a politician to decide where she can and can’t get care and contraception. NARAL, our 1.2 million members, and the pro-choice majority in this country will not sit idly by while the GOP continues its assault on our access to health care and gender equality.”

Each year, more than 4 million young and low-income women and men receive basic reproductive healthcare through the nearly 4,000 clinics nationwide receiving Title X funds. Most Title X patients are low-income women, and disproportionately women of color, who are uninsured and ineligible for Medicaid. Under federal law, Title X funds are already not allowed to be used for abortion services.

Reversal of this rule could make it easier for state politicians to block a woman’s access to contraception and critical preventive care at women’s health clinics across the country. Today’s action is also in direct conflict with numerous court decisions that have ruled against attempts to block women from receiving preventive healthcare at clinics that also provide abortion care.

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