Here in Utah, we believe in the importance of happy, healthy families. It’s probably the one thing that everyone can agree on.
At Planned Parenthood, we believe that one of the best ways to ensure a happy, healthy family is having access to high-quality, affordable family planning services. We know that when families start with healthy parents who are able to time their pregnancies, outcomes are better for everyone. And that’s why Title X, the nation’s program for affordable birth control and reproductive health care, was created.
This program, which 37,000 Utahns and four million people nationwide rely on each year, is meant to ensure that every person — regardless of where they live, their background, or whether or not they have health insurance — has access to basic, preventive reproductive health care, such as birth control, cancer screenings, STI testing and treatment, and regular check-ups.
Title X is at risk. On Monday, the Trump-Pence administration will officially publish its gag rule — drastically changing the program’s original intent.
Specifically, the Trump gag rule does three things:
1) Impose new restrictions designed to make it impossible for millions of patients to get birth control or health care from Planned Parenthood and other safety net health clinics;
2) Ban doctors and nurses in the Title X program from referring their patients or acknowledging the availability of safe, legal abortion;
3) Remove the guarantee that patients get full and accurate comprehensive information about their birth control and preventive care options from their doctor.
These changes are not only a radical departure from the way health care has operated in the United States, they completely undermine the important and essential Title X program.
Since its inception, Planned Parenthood has been the steward of Title X funding and the leading provider of affordable reproductive health care for low-income families across the state. We take that responsibility seriously. Planned Parenthood of Utah is one of the most effective grantees — providing care at the lowest cost per patient in the region. For every dollar spent on family planning services, $7.09 is saved in the health care system. We are the experts in reproductive health care, serving over 47,000 patients last year and conducting research, utilizing technology and investing in our provider network to make sure our patients get the highest quality, most effective comprehensive care possible. In 45 years of independent audits, not one dollar of Title X money has been spent on abortion.
Without Planned Parenthood, uninsured and underinsured patients in Utah would have nowhere else to go to access these lifesaving services. Proponents of “defunding” Planned Parenthood through this rule, who believe that other providers can merely pick up our patients, are painfully naïve. The gag rule excludes other qualified providers in Utah as well.
It’s clear that the Trump-Pence administration wants to punish Planned Parenthood, but they would actually hurt the patients that need us – those who wouldn’t be able to afford or access health care any other way.
My experience is that Utahns approve of the Title X program and believe that everyone should have access to the care they need to live their best life and have a healthy family. Title X was carefully constructed through the bipartisan work of Congress in the 1970s to support that very idea. Yet the current administration would like to unravel the legacy of the national family planning program to score political points at the expense of those most vulnerable in our community.
Playing politics with our health is unacceptable. We will continue to fight this rule via every avenue. At Planned Parenthood, our patients come first and our doors stay open—no matter what.
Karrie Galloway is the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Association of Utah. She lives in Salt Lake City.