Community Letter to Congress Urges No Gag Rules
The Honorable Mitch McConnell
Majority Leader, United States Senate
S-230 The Capitol
Washington, D.C. 20510
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Speaker, United States House of Representatives
H-232 The Capitol
Washington, D.C. 20515
The Honorable Charles Schumer
Minority Leader, United States Senate
S-221 The Capitol
Washington, D.C. 20510
The Honorable Kevin McCarthy
Minority Leader, United States House of Representatives
H-204 The Capitol
Washington, D.C. 20515
September 4, 2019
Dear Leader McConnell, Leader Schumer, Speaker Pelosi, and Leader McCarthy,
As you debate and consider the FY2020 appropriations bills, the undersigned 136 organizations urge you to include provisions that will promote health care access for millions of people in the U.S. and around the world.
In recent years we have seen policymakers push a radical, unethical, anti-sexual and reproductive rights agenda, including through executive order and rulemaking. The current administration has moved to cut access to critical health care programs in the U.S. and abroad, including all funding to UNFPA’s core and humanitarian work; has dramatically expanded the global gag rule; and has finalized a regulation - referred to as the domestic gag rule - which fundamentally alters the Title X family planning program and effectively restricts access to trusted and highly qualified family planning providers who have long been dedicated stewards of the program, including Planned Parenthood health centers, and opens the door to entities that do not provide comprehensive birth control and reproductive health services. All of these efforts, if left unchecked, will cost communities in the U.S. and around the world access to lifesaving care. The administration’s attacks on sexual and reproductive health and rights must be countered by Congress.
With bipartisan agreements in place on topline budget levels, this fiscal year is an opportunity to not only robustly fund critical domestic and global health programs, but also ensure that these investments are effectively used by protecting and promoting reproductive health access via two provisions that have both bipartisan support and the backing of the majority of voters in this country. The House-passed FY2020 Labor-HHS-Education (Labor-HHS) and State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs (SFOPs) appropriations bills include essential protections for the Title X family planning program and repeal of the global gag rule. The Senate must also include these critical provisions, which have bipartisan support, in their FY2020 bills, and Congressional leaders must fight for these provisions throughout FY2020 negotiations. We reject any notion that policies protecting Title X and repealing the global gag rule are “poison pills.” Over the last two appropriations cycles, the Senate has protected reproductive health and rights on both domestic and international priorities on a bipartisan basis; it is time to enact those policies into law.
The politicization of reproductive health programs endangers the lives of individuals and erodes their rights. Over the past two and a half years, hundreds of public health experts, provider organizations, and community leaders have spoken out about the danger of these “gag rules,” one of which has already wreaked havoc around the world and the other of which is dismantling Title X, the nation’s only dedicated source of federal funding for reproductive health care.
As the nation’s family planning program, Title X provides access to affordable birth control, STI testing and treatment, HIV testing, cancer screenings, and other critical preventive health services to individuals with low incomes. For nearly fifty years, the program has provided these critical services to those who need them most, including people of color, young people, LGBTQ people, immigrants, and people in rural communities. But the administration is now advancing its ideological agenda through the domestic gag rule which is designed to dismantle the Title X program, limit what information Title X providers can tell their patients, and result in patients losing access to specialized providers of reproductive health care, including Planned Parenthood health centers, which serve 40 percent of all Title X patients, as well as many independent providers. In total, the gag rule is forcing providers that serve nearly half of all Title X patients out of the program. The domestic gag rule poses a significant, immediate threat to health care access and affordability for people who already face serious barriers to care and struggle to afford rising health care costs. Further, the American Medical Association and numerous provider associations have opposed the Title X rule because it violates core ethical standards and undermines the patient- provider relationship. The Title X protective language passed by the House protects access to critical preventive care for the four million people who get care through Title X. Protecting access to birth control is not a partisan issue: the Title X program has had broad, bipartisan support since its inception in the 1970s. Even recent polling suggests there is nothing controversial about this provision to protect Title X — in fact, it maintains the status quo established under the appropriations packages passed in previous years.
Similarly, the global gag rule limits the ability of foreign nongovernmental organizations to use their own funds. The radical and unprecedented expansion of the global gag rule under the current administration has only magnified the negative impact this policy has on the health and lives of communities worldwide, particularly women and girls and LGBTQI people who are often the most marginalized in their countries. Repeal of the global gag rule would ensure that foreign nongovernmental organizations are not prohibited from receiving U.S. assistance based on their provision of counseling, referrals or medical services that are legal in the U.S. and the country in which they operate. Furthermore, it would ensure that foreign nongovernmental organizations are treated fairly and afforded the same ability as U.S. organizations to engage in advocacy and lobbying activities with non-U.S. funding. The global gag rule undercuts access to contraception, HIV/AIDS services, and maternal health care, contributing to more unintended pregnancies and more unsafe abortions. Research and data about previous iterations of the policy, as well as the current expanded global gag rule, point to the policy disrupting a range of health services, silencing public debate, and rolling back progress. By undermining the effectiveness of U.S. global health investments, the global gag rule hinders the ability to meet U.S. global health, development and foreign policy goals. Repeal of the global gag rule has been included in the Senate SFOPs bill every year since FY2001. It has long-standing bipartisan support, alongside funding for UNFPA and international family planning programs, and its inclusion is consistent with previous bills passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Millions of people in the U.S. and worldwide stand to lose access to health care without the inclusion of these critical protections, which have bipartisan support. Furthermore, a majority of people in this country oppose both the Title X and global gag rules. We look to leaders in both chambers to protect access to reproductive health care for people across the country and around the world, and fight for this language until the end.
Sincerely,
- Advocates for Youth
- African American Ministers In Action
- AIDS United
- American Association of University Women (AAUW)
- American Civil Liberties Union
- American Humanist Association
- American Jewish World Service
- American Medical Student Association
- American Public Health Association
- American Society for Reproductive Medicine
- amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research
- Amnesty International USA
- Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum
- AVAC
- Better World Campaign
- Black Women's Roundtable
- Catholics for Choice
- Center for Biological Diversity
- Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE)
- Center for Inquiry
- Center for International Policy
- Center for Law & Social Policy
- Center for Reproductive Rights
- Community Change Action
- Council for Global Equality
- CREDO
- End Rape on Campus
- Endocrine Society
- Families Belong Together, National Domestic Workers Alliance
- Feminist Majority
- Freedom Network USA
- Funders Concerned About AIDS
- Girls Inc.
- Global Fund for Women
- Global Justice Center
- Global Woman P.E.A.C.E. Foundation
- Guttmacher Institute
- HANA Center
- Harm Reduction Coalition
- HEAL Trafficking, Inc.
- Health GAP
- Healthy Teen Network
- Heartland Alliance International
- Hispanic Federation
- HIV Medicine Association
- Human Rights Campaign
- Human Rights Watch
- If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice
- In Our Own Voice: National Black Women's Reproductive Justice Agenda
- Indivisible
- Infectious Diseases Society of America
- International Center for Research on Women
- International Women's Convocation
- International Women's Health Coalition
- International Youth Alliance for Family Planning
- IntraHealth International
- Ipas
- Jewish Women International
- League of Women Voters of the United States
- MADRE
- MANA, A National Latina Organization
- Medical Students for Choice
- Michigan Medicine
- MomsRising
- MPact Global Action for Gay Men's Health & Rights
- MSI United States
- NAKASEC Virginia
- NARAL Pro-Choice America
- NASPAG
- NASTAD
- National Abortion Federation
- National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum (NAPAWF)
- National Association of Nurse Practitioners in Women's Health
- National Birth Equity Collaborative
- National Center for Lesbian Rights
- National Center for Transgender Equality
- National Council of Jewish Women
- National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association
- National Health Law Program
- National Hispanic Medical Association
- National Institute for Reproductive Health (NIRH)
- National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC)
- National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health
- National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund
- National Network of Abortion Funds
- National Organization for Women
- National Partnership for Women & Families
- National Women's Health Network
- National Women's Law Center
- New Voices for Reproductive Justice
- NextGen America
- NMAC
- North American MenEngage Network
- North American Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology
- O.D. Aid
- OutRight Action International
- PAI
- People For the American Way
- PFLAG National
- Physicians for Reproductive Health
- Pilgrim United Church of Christ, Carlsbad, CA
- Planned Parenthood Federation of America
- Population Connection Action Fund
- Population Institute
- Positive Women's Network-USA
- Power to Decide
- Raising Women's Voices for the Health Care We Need
- Religious Institute
- Secular Coalition for America
- SEIU
- Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS)
- Sierra Club
- SisterLove, Inc.
- Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine
- The AIDS Institute
- The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health
- The Church of Bethesda-by-the Sea
- The Hunger Project
- Treatment Action Group (TAG)
- UltraViolet
- Union for Reform Judaism
- Unitarian Universalist Women’s Federation (UUWF)
- United State of Women
- University at Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
- URGE: Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity
- Utah Health Policy Project
- VCU Health System
- Voices for Progress
- Voto Latino
- WaterAid America
- West Virginians for Affordable Health Care
- White Ribbon Alliance Global Secretariat
- Win Without War
- Women Employed
- Women of Reform Judaism
- Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO)
- Women's Refugee Commission
- Woodhull Freedom Foundation
- YWCA USA
CC: The Honorable Richard Shelby, The Honorable Patrick Leahy, The Honorable Nita Lowey, The Honorable Kay Granger