Taking back Title X

Opinion Article

Under the revised policy regulations, no funds will be allotted to family-planning clinics where abortion will be seen as a method of family planning. The revamping of Title X has stripped funds of prominent non-profit organization Planned Parenthood. Now according to the new regulations defined by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, there must be a clear separation between “clear physical and financial separation.” While you may think this is good or bad depending on your personal stance of pro-life or pro-choice. Here’s why it has a devastating impact on women’s reproductive health.

Women who access the reproductive health care offered at Planned Parenthood are in the majority of lower socioeconomic standing. The majority of the patients who go to Planned Parenthood use Medicaid and Title X. Under the new policy, it will cut patients who rely on the services that Planned Parenthood offers.

According to NRP, “As of 2012, 79 percent of people receiving services from Planned Parenthood lived at 150 percent of the federal poverty level or lower (that comes out to around $18,500 for a single adult), according to a March Government Accountability Office report.” Most of the patients that Planned Parenthood sees are also people of color who already have a difficult time accessing comprehensive health care, and with the new regulations that may be more so now.

The services offered by Planned Parenthood go beyond their contentious abortion services. For starters, the services they offer have more to do with preventive care such as breast and cervical cancer screenings, STI and HIV tests, affordable birth control, sex education, and emergency contraceptive. In fact according to NPR, in 2015 about “3 percent of the services it provided last year were abortion-related, according to the organization's annual report.”

Although the United States remains as one of the highest places with teen pregnancy, in recent years according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, teen pregnancy has decreased. In 2016, “teen birth rate (births per 1,000 females ages 15-19 in a given year) is down nine percent from 2015, when the birth rate was 22.3, and down 67 percent from 1991 when it was at a record high of 61.8,” and so have abortion rates. This result is a part of much to the reproductive access and education that Planned Parenthood offers. But with the consequences of the domestic ‘gag rule’ implemented by Title X will most likely effect on these rates.

According to Politico, under the policy changes of Title X, Planned Parenthood would be receiving “$50 million and $60 million per year through the $286 million program.” Losing much the revenue for the services they provide. Under Title X, providers who receive funding cannot inform their patients of all of their reproductive options. The “domestic gag rule” pushes women reproductive health rights several steps backward, deprioritizing the access and preventive health care for women.  Instead of providing comprehensive methods of birth control, under the new policy regulations clinics are being told to preach abstinence.

Unfortunately, abstinence has not shown as a comprehensive method of prevention. As someone who came from a socially conservative state that didn’t teach sex education, let me tell you that preaching abstinence is not a valid form of prevention. If anything it leaves a majority of youth unprotected and ill-informed on their reproductive rights.

There needs to be a change in policy in order to include patients who rely on Title X to receive health care. Title X needs revision in order to provide access to health care. The Trump administration has chosen to continually attack and failed to see an organization that dedicated itself to providing reproductive healthcare for women. Planned Parenthood isn’t going anywhere. If anything we need to stand up and call our legislators and demand they take a stance for women’s reproductive rights.