Yesterday was a bad day

Planned Parenthood was forced yesterday to withdraw from the Title X family planning program, a nearly 50-year-old program that provides birth control, STD testing, cancer screenings, and other health care to millions of young, uninsured, and underinsured people across the country.

Dear MoveOn member,

Donald Trump and Mike Pence just took a baseball bat to health care for millions of women.

Planned Parenthood was forced yesterday to withdraw from the Title X family planning program, a nearly 50-year-old program that provides birth control, STD testing, cancer screenings, and other health care to millions of young, uninsured, and underinsured people across the country.¹

Planned Parenthood was forced to drop out and forgo millions of dollars each year in federal funds, because earlier this year the Trump administration put in place a new rule—the Trump Gag Rule—that makes it illegal for doctors and other health providers participating in the Title X program to talk with their patients about how and where they can access abortion safely and legally.²

Planned Parenthood is fighting the Trump Gag Rule in court and in Congress. And they need our help.

Will you split a $3 donation between Planned Parenthood's fight to overturn the gag rule in the courts and Congress and MoveOn's campaign to stop these right-wing attacks on access to reproductive health care?

Click here to chip in now.

Title X helps prevent more than 822,000 unintended pregnancies each year.³ It's the nation's only program dedicated to helping people get affordable birth control and other reproductive health care.

The program serves more than 4 million people each year—and fully 40% get services through Planned Parenthood.⁴

But what now? Planned Parenthood cannot be replaced in the program. In some rural communities, Planned Parenthood is the only reproductive health care provider. And in whole states, like Utah, Planned Parenthood is the only organization that was receiving Title X funds.

Women are already having to drive impossible distances to access abortion. Now, women may be forced to drive hundreds of miles just to get birth control.

It's truly outrageous—and dangerous. It's 2019, not 1919.

Eddie, we have to overturn the Trump Gag Rule either in the courts or in Congress and stop these GOP attacks on our bodies and our ability to control our own lives. Will you chip in $3, or whatever you can afford, now?

Please, click here to split a donation between Planned Parenthood and MoveOn to help us fight back.

Planned Parenthood, the American Medical Association, seven states, and other providers have sued the Trump administration over the Trump Gag Rule.⁵ And in June, the U.S. House passed a spending bill that blocks it, so we need to pressure the Senate to act.⁶

Unless we overturn the draconian rule, it will have impacts that reverberate throughout the country and especially in underserved communities, including communities of color and rural communities.

Already, Planned Parenthood is having to end services at a mobile health center in Cleveland, OH, that provides HIV testing, pregnancy tests, and other services due to the loss of Title X funding.⁷

There have been only three new recipients of Title X grants this year, as the Trump administration forces mainstream health providers out of the program. One of the new providers is a Catholic-affiliated group that provides no contraception—just guidance on the "rhythm method."⁸

No, no, no.

Will you stand with Planned Parenthood and MoveOn and fight back against these Trump and GOP attacks on women? Join us. Chip in $3—or whatever you can afford.

Thanks for all you do.

–Emily, Kenia, Chris, Seth, and the rest of the team

Sources:

1. "Planned Parenthood Refuses Federal Funds Over Abortion Restrictions," The New York Times, August 19, 2019
https://act.moveon.org/go/83126?t=5&akid=242248%2E10220574%2E3_cMPX

2. "#ProtectX: We Need to Undo the Dangerous Title X Gag Rule," I Stand with Planned Parenthood, accessed August 20, 2019
https://act.moveon.org/go/83127?t=7&akid=242248%2E10220574%2E3_cMPX

3. "It Just Got Harder to Get Birth Control in America," The New York Times, August 19, 2019
https://act.moveon.org/go/83128?t=9&akid=242248%2E10220574%2E3_cMPX

4. "Planned Parenthood Refuses Federal Funds Over Abortion Restrictions," The New York Times, August 19, 2019
https://act.moveon.org/go/83126?t=11&akid=242248%2E10220574%2E3_cMPX

5. "Trump Administration Gag Rule Forces Planned Parenthood Out of Title X National Program for Birth Control," Planned Parenthood, August 19, 2019
https://act.moveon.org/go/83129?t=13&akid=242248%2E10220574%2E3_cMPX

6. Ibid.

7. "Planned Parenthood Refuses Federal Funds Over Abortion Restrictions," The New York Times, August 19, 2019
https://act.moveon.org/go/83126?t=15&akid=242248%2E10220574%2E3_cMPX

8. "It Just Got Harder to Get Birth Control in America," The New York Times, August 19, 2019
https://act.moveon.org/go/83128?t=17&akid=242248%2E10220574%2E3_cMPX

Want to support our work? The MoveOn community will work every moment, day by day and year by year, to resist Trump's agenda, contain the damage, defeat hate with love, and begin the process of swinging the nation's pendulum back toward sanity, decency, and the kind of future that we must never give up on. And to do it we need your support, now more than ever. Will you stand with us?

Click here to chip in $3, or whatever you can afford.

Contributions to MoveOn.org Civic Action are not tax deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes. This email was sent to Eddie Alfaro on August 20th, 2019. To change your email address or update your contact info, click here. To remove yourself from this list, click here.