Opinion: Restricting funds for birth control and other family planning services is foolish
Opinion: Restricting funds for birth control and other family planning services is foolish
Kim Greene
Opinion contributor
“When I lost my virginity, that same month the recession hit and my dad lost his job as an engineer. So we lost our insurance.”
Riece Hamilton of Louisville was 15 years old when she realized she needed access to affordable birth control. Riece’s aunt told her she could get affordable birth control from Planned Parenthood.
Riece told this story to Planned Parenthood. (You can view it on Youtube.) Like Riece and her aunt, generations of people here in Kentucky and across the country have relied on the affordable, confidential and comprehensive care that Planned Parenthood has provided — free of stigma and shame — for more than a century, and 86 years here in Kentucky.
I proudly stand with Planned Parenthood because I believe all people deserve the ability to control their bodies and their lives.
Countless people who rely on this care were able to access it through a federal program known as Title X. This program, signed into law by Republican President Richard Nixon, provides funds to help defray the cost for birth control and reproductive health care for low-income individuals. For the past 50 years, these funds have been used by health centers to make sure those struggling to make ends meet, or people who don’t have health insurance, can access annual exams, STI testing and treatment, cancer screenings and more.
Planned Parenthood has played a crucial role in providing this care. Nationwide Planned Parenthood health centers served 40% of the 4 million Title X patients. On Nov. 15, 2019, however, this changed.
Planned Parenthood health centers nationwide were forced out of the Title X program by the Trump administration’s new gag rule and the harmful restrictions it imposed on providers. This rule makes it illegal for any provider in the Title X program to tell patients how or where to access abortion. The administration also imposed prohibitive and unnecessary “physical separation” restrictions on health centers that provide abortions.
Together these moves were clearly intended to push Planned Parenthood health centers and other reproductive health care providers out of Title X. And they did. The loss of this funding inevitably lands hardest on the patients formerly served. It is heartbreaking to me that a patient who goes to Planned Parenthood’s website is now greeted with this message: “Our doors stay open, but we are no longer able to offer health care to all patients at no cost.”
Young people like Riece, the first person on her mother’s side of the family to graduate high school without getting pregnant, will now have to find funds for reproductive services or go without.
Restricting funds that pay for birth control and other family planning services is foolish public policy; it will lead to more unintended pregnancies. According to the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, family planning services at Kentucky’s Title X-supported health centers helped prevent 15,600 unintended pregnancies in 2014, many of which would’ve resulted in publicly funded births or abortions. And without publicly funded family planning, the number of unintended pregnancies in Kentucky would be 46% higher.
Where will the Title X funds previously awarded to Planned Parenthood health centers go? According to a recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, only 6% of the existing non-Planned Parenthood Title X clinics would be able to increase their capacity enough to take on these patients. There is a push to divert those funds to religiously based organizations and crisis pregnancy centers that counsel women against abortions. Most of those groups do not provide a full range of contraceptive services.
A 2019 nationwide survey revealed that 59% of Americans surveyed oppose the gag rule. Another poll of swing districts showed the same result: 57% oppose it, and by a 40 point margin — 61 to 21 — support the House-passed bill that would block the gag rule. They join public health experts, mayors and others who understand what harm this rule will do.
So what is there for us “ordinary people” to do? We must speak out and stick together to take back the truth — every person deserves access to affordable reproductive health care no matter who they are, how much they earn, or where they live. The Trump administration is hoping this gag rule flies under the radar because if they’re not stopped, they will dismantle an essential program that provides birth control and health care to millions of people. We can’t let that happen.
If you agree, talk to your neighbors, your family and your friends. Most importantly, tell your elected representative the attacks on reproductive health must stop. Tell them Title X must be restored.
Kim Greene is a Louisville attorney and a member of the board of Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc.
