Nancy Northup Discusses Proposed Title X Restrictions on The Rachel Maddow Show
Nancy Northup, President and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, was a guest on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show today discussing the Trump Administration’s proposed restrictions to Title X, a federal grant program dedicated to family planning and preventive health services including cancer screenings and STD testing. Title X has been in existence for nearly 50 years and in that time has provided lifesaving access to essential health care for millions of low-income and uninsured individuals. The new regulations would restrict that access by cutting off federal funding for any facility that provides abortion services.
“People need to see this as the continued politicization of women’s health care. Title X has been around as a program since 1970, during the Nixon administration, so if it was good enough back then 50 years ago, it’s good enough now – and they want to put restrictions that have never ever been in place in 50 years of this program…What women need is to get health care from professionals who are experts in reproductive health care,” stated Northup, “and that includes places that do the whole range of women’s reproductive health care.” That’s why defunding facilities that offer these services is a bad idea.
Although the White House issued a statement about the proposed rule on Friday evening, it has not yet released details of these restrictions. The Center will actively monitor developments in the coming days and share the potential outcome of the final regulations.