The National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health Condemns Extremist Administrative Attacks on Family Planning Providers

WASHINGTON, D.C. –  Last night, the Trump-Pence Administration released a new policy that seeks to end Title X as we know it. For nearly fifty years, Title X has allowed healthcare providers to provide comprehensive information about a person’s pregnancy options. This federal program is an essential healthcare grant dedicated solely to providing comprehensive family planning and related preventive services to individuals living with low-incomes; it allows individuals to access the care they need in the community where they live. This proposed rule will impose new rules designed to make it impossible for millions of patients to get birth control or cervical cancer screenings from reproductive health care providers like Planned Parenthood. Doctors, nurses, hospitals, and community health centers across the country will no longer be able to refer their patients for safe and legal abortion. The proposed rule removes the guarantee that an individual is getting full and accurate information about their healthcare options and access to all effective, acceptable, and medically approved methods of birth control, allowing them to pick the method that is best for them.

Ann Marie Benítez, Senior Director of Government Relations at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, issued the following statement:
 

“The proposed rule would be disproportionately devastating for people of color, including the Latinx community — the most uninsured group in the United States. Of the 4 million people who receive Title X care, half are women of color and 32% of patients identify as Hispanic. For many individuals who are living with low-income, are uninsured or underinsured, or are undocumented, Title X clinics are a trusted source of comprehensive, evidence-based, culturally-sensitive, and linguistically-appropriate healthcare services. For many Latinxs, regardless of immigration status, Title X family planning clinics are the only healthcare providers they know where they can access contraception, STI testing, and preventive services like cervical cancer screenings. Without Title X providers in communities across the country, Latinxs will have an even harder time accessing the life-saving care and education on abortion-related services that they need.”

“Such an extreme rule will force reproductive health providers to either lie to their patients or lose Title X money. We will not stand for this. NLIRH will continue to fight for the right of all Latinxs to access the services they need, when they need it. The reproductive health, rights, and justice community defeated this rule in the 1990s and we will do it again. All people–regardless of where they live or how much they make–deserve access to affordable, quality healthcare that includes the full range of reproductive health services.”

For more information on NLIRH’s fight for health, dignity and justice, visit us at latinainstitute.org or follow us on Facebook and Twitter @NLIRH.

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The National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health is the only national reproductive justice organization dedicated to building Latina power to advance health, dignity, and justice for 28 million Latinas, their families, and communities in the United States through leadership development, community mobilization, policy advocacy, and strategic communications.