March 4
On This Day In 2019
Title X is America’s only national, federally funded family planning program. It was created with bipartisan support in 1970 to offer comprehensive preventive health services to the under- or uninsured. So…a good thing, right?
Not according to the Trump Administration, which came up with a devious change to the program that would make life harder for those most in need of help.
Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services devised a new “domestic gag rule” that barred any provider in the Title X network from discussing abortion care to patients—even if the patient asked about it. OTDI 2019, the Trump Administration published the final version of this new rule in the Federal Register.
The move was as clever as it was cruel. It drove seven state governments and Planned Parenthood to drop out of the program completely, because they didn’t want their hands tied in providing comprehensive family planning services to patients. The rule also prohibited family planning services from existing in the same location as abortion providers.
Yes, it matters who's president. This, of course, was only one stage of Trump's War on Women, which also included his successful plan to take away Roe v. Wade rights.
Team Biden to the rescue. The Democratic Administration reversed Trump's policy in November 2021.
Sources/Links for further reading
The Guttmacher Institute explained the meaning of Trump’s rule change
Columbia’s Mailman School of Domestic Health wrote about the broader implications of the saga
On This Day In The Trump Administration: Trump destroys Title X for family planning service