Sunday, June 28, 2015
The bill to eradicate Title X
Since
the Republicans took over the House of Representatives in 2011, they have been
trying to eliminate the highly effective federal family-planning program known
as Title X. In 1970, Title X was enacted by an
overwhelming majority in Congress. This program gives millions of lower-income and rural women access
to contraception, counseling, cancer screenings, and treatment for sexually
transmitted diseases.
In 2011 they tried to shut down Title X completely, but
were only able to extract significant cuts from this already underfunded
program. Now, a House subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services proposed
to eliminate all of the Title X funding from the 2016 spending bill. The
subcommittee voted to double abstinence-only education, despite the fact that
it has been associated with higher rates of teen pregnancy. Since Title X is a
federal program, it cannot provide any funding for abortions, yet it is caught
up in the nation’s abortion wars.
The
Title X grants actually help prevent unwanted pregnancies. The program helped
avoid about 363,000 abortions in 2012. Also, the public money spent on family
planning reduces costs related to pregnancy, birth and infant care, sexually
transmitted diseases, and cervical cancer. The bill to eradicate the program takes
aim at some of the most vulnerable women in the country. These women are poorer
and typically live in rural areas with little access to health care.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/22/opinion/republicans-take-aim-at-poor-women.html?ref=politics&_r=1
