House committee proposes completely eliminating the Title X family planning program

Yesterday the House Appropriations Committee released a draft list of 70 proposed spending cuts to be included in an upcoming Continuing Resolution bill.

That $327M for family planning? That would be the entire Title X program–which gives clinics, such as Planned Parenthood, federal funds to provide basic health care like  contraception, STD treatment, and cancer screenings. Funds that are explicitly prohibited from going towards abortion care. Funds that help prevent many unintended pregnancies each year. Funds that save the taxpayers $4 down the road for every $1 spent. Funds that provide much-need primary and preventive to millions of women and men in a health care system riddled with gaps.

Of course, while slashing family planning funds with one hand, anti-choice members of the House are continuing their all-out assault on abortion access with the other. And if there was still any doubt that they don’t actually give a shit about babies once they’re actually born, well, think again.

Making it harder for women to avoid unintended pregnancies? Check. Making it harder for women to end pregnancies when they need to? Check. Making it harder for women to raise children when they choose to? Check. Gosh, it’s almost as if they’re just playing political football–at the expense of women’s lives, their families’ well-being, and the greater societal good. And they simply do not care.

I think Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, said all there is to say: “The House leadership’s proposal to eliminate the Title X program is bad policy, bad politics, and flat out immoral.”