HARTFORD, Conn. (WTIC) - Attorney General William Tong, members of Planned Parenthood and healthcare advocates gathered at the Legislative Office Building for a press conference to stand in opposition to the Title X domestic gag rule imposed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The group expressed concerns over the rule imposing new unlawful restrictions on access to women's healthcare. The Trump administration mandate bars federal family-planning money from being allocated to health care groups that offer abortion referrals - like Planned Parenthood.
Speakers at the press conference stressed that Title X does not pay for abortions, but rather pays for essential screenings, birth control and accurate counseling for all health conditions.
The Title X program was initiated under the Nixon administration and for nearly 50 years, has served as the nation's bipartisan family planning program. In essence, the program was established because people do not always have meaningful access to comprehensive family planning services.
For 2017 alone, Title X clinics in Connecticut served more than 43,000 individuals at 17 different sites. About 85 percent of those served had incomes below 250 percent of the federal poverty level.
In July 2018, Connecticut joined a coalition of 13 states filing comment strongly opposing the rule. Now, the Office of the Attorney General is working closely with other states to take legal action. Attorney General William Tong said that planned action will be swift as well.
President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southern New England, Amanda Skinner, says the gag rule was devised intentionally to take away funding from Planned Parenthood where over 36,000 people are served through the Title X program each year.
"This gag rule is dangerous and scientifically unsound," said Skinner. "It will elevate and promote ineffective abstinence-only programs and fertility awareness methods over the use of the evidence-based, effective birth control methods that have brought the rates of unintended pregnancy, teen birth and abortion to the lowest levels recorded."
She added Planned Parenthood will not turn away patients who cannot afford to pay, but it will require the organization to seek other forms of funding.
Attorney General William Tong noted that Title X is a critical, longstanding federal program providing basic healthcare (including reproductive healthcare) to families nationwide. He added it is designed to provide non-directive care and counseling.
"It is not supposed to push you in one way or another, but to give you the full panoply of options," said Tong. "And it's definitely not designed to be used as a mechanism for one political point of view to impose their will in healthcare decisions on the people of this state and the families of this state. And so, in it's non-directive nature it is supposed to be agnostic, merely to be there as a resource to the people that need this healthcare. Particularly people who depend on this healthcare (program) and federal and state programs for access to healthcare."
He added by preventing Planned Parenthood and other similar healthcare providers from providing patients with all the information they need, the program is becoming directive.
Furthermore, he said, "In that way it represents a fundamental altering, reordering and dismantling of a system of healthcare that all of us rely on - it's nothing short of that."