Title X is under attack. This means that you are under attack. Title X, the only federal program dedicated to providing people with family planning and other preventive health services, impacts us all.
Over the past five years, Title X has been cut by almost $40 million, leaving 700,000 patients without vital healthcare services. Recently, however, House Republicans have announced a budget proposal that would completely strip Title X of its funding.
This is just the latest example of Congress playing politics while the lives and futures of very real people, like you and me, lay in jeopardy. Title X empowers women and men to take control of their reproductive health by providing contraception, testing for sexually transmitted infections, and screening for cervical cancer. The people who will be most affected by these cuts? It’s no shocker that it’s the same people that always get the short end of the stick. Over 90% of Title X clients live under the poverty line and more than half of the people it serves are in their 20s. Cutting Title X would take services away from you, me, and the people we see on our campuses everyday.
These clinics have already had to scale back hours, lay off staff, and, in some cases, close down. Six out of ten women who use Title X for family planning say that it is their regular source for care. It is simply inhumane to continue to strip young women and men of the services they need to lead healthy and successful lives. Title X reportedly prevented 2.2 million unintended pregnancies in a 2010 survey. Those births would have resulted in approximately 1.1 million unintended births and 760,000 abortions.
Giving young people the ability and resources to take preventative measures for their reproductive health even saves money. For every dollar spent on Title X, about seven dollars are saved. So why are House Republicans so against a program that has been successful for over four decades? This proposal is just another way for government officials to strip young women of their bodily autonomy.
I refuse to give the government power over my body. I refuse to lose services that have already been fought for by generations before me. I refuse to remain silent.
Title X matters. We need to talk about it.
Join the fight on your campus as part of our campaign for birth control access!
