Rep. Antonio Delgado Condemns the Gag Rule on Reproductive Health
WASHINGTON, DC – The Administration’s recent gag rule undermining Title X, a federal program ensuring affordable and accessible reproductive health care for millions of low-income or uninsured individuals, disturbingly limits the guidance health care professionals can provide to women seeking care. The rule undercuts the ability of medical professionals to provide women with all available information. By threatening funding for organizations like Planned Parenthood, this rule also jeopardizes the accessibility of basic health care services for women, especially impacting those in rural and low-income areas where health care options are often already limited.
“Placing limits on the information members of the medical community can provide to women seeking reproductive services is not only completely unethical, it is yet another dangerous attack from this Administration on affordable and accessible health care,” said Delgado. “It is fundamentally wrong for women’s health care decisions to be influenced by the government because of information censorship. I strongly support women’s reproductive rights and am proud to stand with organizations like Planned Parenthood in opposing this gag rule.”
The new federal rule precludes health care providers from referring patients to abortion services and no longer requires clinics to share all reproductive health care options, including abortion services, with women seeking their medical guidance. Sharing information on where patients can receive abortion services would jeopardize Title X funding, which has been used for over 40 years to provide affordable birth control and reproductive health care to more than four million people annually.
