NARAL Statement on Senate Vote to Move Forward with Reversing Pro-Choice Title X Regulation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 30, 2017

Kaylie Hanson Long, NARAL Pro-Choice America national communications director, issued the following statement in response to the GOP-controlled Senate moving forward with undermining the Health and Human Services Title X regulation:

“Just one day after Sean Spicer laughably claimed that the administration was committed to women’s empowerment, the GOP is going to extraordinary lengths to deny women access to basic health care. Republicans have literally had to fly in a senator to vote and haul the Vice President — Mr. Defund-Planned-Parenthood-himself — to the Senate floor to cast a tie-breaking vote. All of this makes the GOP desperation and obsession with taking away reproductive health care crystal clear. This unhealthy obsession is grounded in a need to control women and keep us in ‘our place,’ and no number of ‘women’s empowerment’ events can change that.”

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. IF successful, this move will be 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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