A New Federal Appointment

Threat to Women's Health
The Bush administration has appointed anti-birth control activist Dr. Eric Keroack to run Title X, the nation's $283 million, federally-funded family planning program, as new Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs (DASPA) in the Department of Health and Human Services.

Keroack is the medical director of five crisis pregnancy centers in Massachusetts that oppose counseling and provision of birth control, and oppose sex education that includes the benefits of contraception to prevent pregnancy and STIs.  Moreover, Keroack has testified in favor of biased counseling provisions in the Massachusetts legislature, and is prolific in writings that promote politics over sound science and medicine.

A Bad Choice for Women
Make your voice heard!  Take action and ask U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt to appoint an administrator who is committed to protecting women’s health.

What is Title X?
Title X is the nation’s first federal program dedicated to the provision of family planning services.  Congress established the program more than 30 years ago.  Since then, the Title X program has helped build a nationwide network of family planning clinics, including PPCO centers; established the standards used for the delivery of high-quality, low-cost family planning services; and enabled millions of women to plan their pregnancies, prevent unintended births, and receive desperately needed reproductive health care.  Since 1980, Title X has helped women avoid almost 20 million pregnancies and has provided key reproductive health services to millions of women.

Survey Says — Title X Saves Taxpayers’ Dollars; Each $1 Invested Saves $3.80
Doubling Funding Could Prevent Additional 244,000 Unplanned Pregnancies, Save Nearly $800 Million
A new analysis by the Guttmacher Institute has found that doubling the current $283 million funding level for the federal Title X family planning program could help low-income women prevent about 244,000 additional unintended pregnancies annually.  A poor woman is now nearly four times as likely to have an unplanned pregnancy as her higher-income counterpart.

Despite this reality, inflation-adjusted funding for Title X has dropped by nearly 60% since FY 1980, even as family planning clinics have faced escalating costs and growing numbers of women find themselves in need of publicly-funded family planning services.

By averting an estimated 116,000 unplanned births, most of which would otherwise be paid for by the Medicaid program, doubling Title X funding could also produce yearly net government savings of almost $800 million — a return of approximately $3.80 in savings for every $1 increase in Title X funding.  The increase could also prevent an estimated 98,000 abortions.

A Title X funding increase makes good economic sense, for taxpayers and for poor women.