More Than A Magazine, A Movement
The domestic gag rule—a legacy of the Trump-Pence administration—bans doctors in the U.S. Title X program from telling women and pregnant people how they can safely and legally access abortion.
Project 2025 promotes a presidential agenda that rolls back civil and human rights and implements extremist conservative policies across every federal department and agency. Its sweeping far-right policy framework, by the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, includes numerous attacks on sexual and reproductive health and rights.
This fact sheet enumerates some of the agenda’s most serious threats to sexual and reproductive health and describes potential effects.
The number of abortions in the U.S. increased by 8 percent during the Trump-Pence administration. Overall, fewer people became pregnant, but among those who did, a larger proportion chose to have an abortion. About one in five pregnancies in 2020 ended in abortion.
This research reveals a dramatic reversal of a 30-year trend of declining numbers of abortion, “underscoring that the need for abortion care in the United States is growing just as the U.S. Supreme Court appears likely to overturn or gut Roe v. Wade.”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reversed a Trump-era policy prohibiting healthcare providers who receive Title X funds from informing patients about the full range of reproductive healthcare options, including abortion.
“Now, our Title X family planning program can once again function in the way it’s meant to—by providing patients with birth control, STI screenings and cancer screenings that keep them healthy, and by informing them about all their options, including their right to abortion.”
President-Elect Biden’s platform for women promises to be the most ambitious presidential agenda yet addressing issues that affect women and girls. This is the first of a multi-part series covering the agenda.
The health care prong of President Elect Biden’s agenda for women includes protecting and strengthening access to reproductive health care, expanding access to high-quality, affordable health care, addressing maternal mortality and tackling health inequities. The platform focuses in particular on developing health care protections for LGBTQ+ women, women with disabilities, incarcerated women, women veterans and Native women.
Late last month, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals brought us one step closer to dismantling our national family planning program: Title X. The proposed regulations also take aim at women’s health by “gagging,” or prohibiting, any provider receiving Title X funds from providing or even referring patients for abortion services. Every judge to rule in favor of unblocking the rule was appointed by a Republican.
Attacks on basic reproductive access in this country show a widespread disregard for women—and they have reckless consequences for society.
Litigation working through the judicial system could restore, or permanently alter, the Title X program. There are three cases to watch. Here’s a quick breakdown of where they stand.
Across the country, low-income and young women are facing increasing barriers to reproductive health care because of a gag rule recently imposed by Donald Trump’s administration on recipients of Title X.
The Trump-Pence Gag Rule punishes low-income patients and the health care professionals who serve them. We cannot allow this ruthless policy to continue to threaten Title X clinics—and we can win this by demanding that our policymakers rescind these rules immediately.