As They Seek to Ban Abortion, GOP Also Moves to Eliminate Title X Family Planning Program

Written by Jodi Jacobson for RHRealityCheck.org – News, commentary and community for reproductive health and justice.

As members of the anti-choice Republican and Tea Party House majority debated allowing women to die to salve the “consciences” of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and using the tax code to virtually eliminate insurance coverage for abortion in the United States, the GOP/Tea Party majority took another brazen step.

It moved to dismantle Title X, the nation’s family planning program.

The House Appropriations Committee announced in a press release today a $327 million cut to family planning.  For FY 2010, $317 million was appropriated for the Title X program, but the President’s FY11 budget request was for $327 million.

“Today, the House Leadership launched its latest outrageous attack on women’s health,” said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “The House Leadership’s FY 2011 Continuing Resolution proposes to completely eliminate the Title X family planning program, which has connected millions of  American women with health care since Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1970.”

Put another way, the House Appropriations Committee wants to ensure that more low-income women experience unintended and untenable pregnancies, and that they are then forced to bring those to term.  And along the way, by cutting Title X, Congress will also ensure that more women die of breast and cervical cancer and more people suffer from sexually transmitted infections.  This is dictatorship over women’s lives. Read more