Planned Parenthood Republican Advisory Board opposes proposed Title X "gag" rule

Domestic ‘gag’ rule a serious attack on core Republican principles

The Title X “Protect Life Rule” the Trump Administration proposes is thinly a veiled “gag” rule intended to prohibit physicians from relaying accurate and complete reproductive health information to their patients. The rule bans referrals for abortion, and eliminates the decades-old guarantee that health care providers will not withhold information about abortion. The “gag’ rule would penalize doctors and specialized providers like Planned Parenthood by withholding Title X family planning funding. By enforcing this “gag” rule our government is sponsoring a dishonest and unethical barrier between patients and their physicians.  This misguided action denigrates the very reason Republicans created Title X and poses a genuine threat to the health of millions of women.

GOP voices are essential in conversations about women's health.  The GOP has long supported family planning as an avenue for personal responsibility and we subscribe to limited government in our daily lives.  The proposed rule runs contrary to these beliefs exemplifying instead fundamental and gross government overreach and causing potential harm to the very people Title X was designed to help, most vulnerable women in our nation.

It is unacceptable that this Republican administration would advance policies to prevent women from accessing a full range of reproductive health care providers and options.  It is simply poor public health policy to refuse women access to reproductive health services at Planned Parenthood health centers nationwide.  Health care professionals agree that these patients cannot be readily absorbed by other clinics, which would cascade into negative health outcomes for women nationwide.  Without Planned Parenthood there will be an increase in unintended pregnancies, particularly in areas of poverty where Planned Parenthood may be the only place where health and pregnancy “prevention” can be addressed.  

The proposed Title X “gag” rule is not in line with how most Republicans in this country actually feel.

Radical health care departure

Additionally, a domestic “gag” rule would be a radical departure from accepted methods of health care delivery currently practiced in the United States. On every level withholding health care information, as proposed, is dishonest and faulty public policy. That’s why just last night, the American Nurses Association declared that it “violates basic ethics of the [nursing] profession.”

Politicizing access to safe and quality healthcare

Since day one, the Trump-Pence administration has advanced policies that take away women’s basic healthcare, rights, and freedoms. They have eliminated protections for survivors of sexual assault. They are trying to eliminate the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program. They implemented a rule that allows employers to decide whether or not birth control is covered by insurance. And they have tried time and again to prevent patients from coming to Planned Parenthood.

The majority of Republicans will not countenance these continuing assaults on reproductive health care. Nor should Republicans tolerate the overt accession of the reactionary few on of the religious right to stymie the patient /physician relationship that is reflective of our personal freedoms. 

Women’s health is too important to the well-being of the country to allow this “gag” rule deception to move forward unchallenged. 

Planned Parenthood Republican Advisory Board:

Randall Moody (NE/AZ)  - National Co-Chair

Darlee Crockett (CA) - National Co-Chair

Kathy Hart Beard (DE)

Tonie Bell (MI)

Helen Bosley (PA)

Triste Brooks (NJ)

Dina Butcher (ND)

Janet Duprey (NY)

C. Richard Gulick, M.D. Fellow of The American College of OBGYN (MO)

Terri Huntington (KS)

Ted Kohnen (CA)

Laura Lavine (NY)

Joan McK. Culver (MO)

Tom Nolan (FL)

Teresa Sayward (NY)

Marvin Singleton (KS/AR/MO)

Karen Stram (ME)