RESEARCH AND POLICY

Should women have the luxury of accessing depoliticized healthcare or must we tend to our bodies while contending with an incessant legislative agenda? Does “fighting the good fight” take precedence over our physical wellbeing? 

When your bodily autonomy is up for question, the area between public advocacy and personal health becomes unclear. 

This past July, Planned Parenthood ousted former president Leana Wen, citing differences in priorities and management styles. Wen is a proponent of depoliticizing Planned Parenthood and its services, but the organization isn’t ready to chart a new course. A New York Times article reported that Planned Parenthood’s board of directors “felt it needed a more aggressive political leader to combat the current efforts to roll back access to abortions.” 

Meanwhile, nine states have passed early abortion bans as of this summer. Access is waning and the need to normalize women’s health couldn’t be more urgent. However, political aggression is not the solution. Progress is the need of the hour, and politics stands in its way. 

Planned Parenthood’s actions against Wen speak to prioritization of publicity and political statements at the cost of the communities it serves. 

Wen, in her New York Times op-ed, pointed to a positive shift in public perception regarding abortion during her tenure at Planned Parenthood. A poll published in early June reported that 77% of Americans believed that the Supreme Court should Uphold Roe v. Wade. Still, her efforts to integrate women’s health into mainstream healthcare were undermined, and she was asked to leave. 

Instead of using abortion politics as leverage to advance their cause, Planned Parenthood should care for women by considering their health before their civic value; by classifying its services as necessary rights instead of political strategy. 

This year has seen a devastating regression in reproductive health rights. America bears the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world, and our plight will only intensify with increasingly limited access to women’s healthcare. 

Women are in danger in this climate of extremism. When a woman seeks care from Planned Parenthood, she faces the risk of assault by protestors outside the clinic. Restrictive policies, including the Title X Gag Rule passed a few weeks ago, impede women’s roles as decision makers. Safety and access as it relates to women’s health have been consistently under siege, even after the establishment of Planned Parenthood over a century ago. Addressing this by treating women’s health services as part of holistic healthcare should be the organization’s immediate concern. 

Planned Parenthood’s political approach isn’t working anymore. Women’s health is, first and foremost, a public health issue. When I walk into Planned Parenthood, I’m not looking to make a political statement. I’m looking to access my fundamental right to healthcare. 

 

Featured image: Tracy Emin, My Abortion (1990)

 

Earlier this year, the Trump administration issued a new abortion rule that bars healthcare clinics that perform abortions or provide abortion referrals from receiving Title X funds. The rule was officially enforced yesterday. Here’s a quick rundown on what’s happening and what all of this means for reproductive and women’s health.

Title X is a federal grant program dedicated solely to providing family planning services and related reproductive health services including birth control, STI screenings and breast/cervical cancer screenings for low-income patients.

As the only federal grant program dedicated to these services, Title X is crucial for the health of millions of Americans. Nearly 4,000 clinics nationwide receive Title X funding, allowing them to provide services for around four million people a year. The program is especially important for underinsured or uninsured low-income people of color who often use Title X-funded clinics.

In March 2019, the Trump administration issued a domestic abortion “gag” rule. This rule was fully enforced yesterday (on September 18th, 2019).

The new rule states that health clinics can’t receive certain funding from Title X if they provide abortions or refer patients to other health centers that provide abortions. The rule is meant to create seperation between facilities, programs and any other health services using Title X funds from those that provide abortions. The rule still allows providers to offer “nondirective counseling” on abortion, which means doctors can still go over treatment options with patients in order to make sure they get all of the information they need to make the best decision about their health. However, nondirective counseling would prohibit a doctor from telling a patient where they could go to get an abortion, even if the patient requested this information.

So what does this all mean?

This rule has left facilities receiving Title X funding in a predicament. They can either stop receiving funding from Title X or stop providing abortion services and referrals to patients. If a clinic provider wants to talk to patients about ways to access a safe and legal abortion, they can’t receive Title X funding for other health services they provide like affordable birth control or STI screenings.

Note: Federal law already prohibits the usage of Title X funds to pay for an abortion, and federal Medicaid funding also doesn’t cover abortions except in rare circumstances. Under this rule, Title X-funded facilities can no longer provide abortion services and receive Title X funding for other non-abortion services at the same time — even though none of these funds were used to cover abortion services in the first place.

In August, Planned Parenthood, which treats 40% of all Title X patients in the country, decided to withdraw from the federal program, instead of stopping abortion services and referrals in their clinics. Planned Parenthood is not the only one. Main Family Planning and Public Health Solutions, a group of clinics in Maine and New York, respectively, also announced they would leave the Title X program.

This new rule not only impacts a patient’s ability to receive information about accessing a safe and legal abortion, but also has devastating consequences on those who rely on Title X for comprehensive preventative care and women’s health services. Before Trump’s gag rule, health clinics used Title-X funds to cover 720,000 Pap tests, almost 2 million breast exams and more than 4 million STD tests. Furthermore, funds from the program were also used to prevent about 1 million unintended pregnancies annually, through birth control and other contraception. With so many clinics leaving the Title X program, many low-income patients will now have to travel further distances, endure longer wait times and take time off of work to receive care. The new rule will deny many women the healthcare they need and is a huge step backwards for reproductive and women’s health.