[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 69 (Wednesday, April 27, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2180-S2181]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                Title X

  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, for more than 50 years, the Title X Family 
Planning Program has provided birth control, cancer screenings, HIV 
tests, and other essential healthcare services to millions of 
Americans.
  Now, this program primarily serves patients who already face many 
barriers to accessing healthcare. Six in ten women who rely on the 
program for contraception say that a title X provider is the only 
healthcare provider they see all year. Yet Republican politicians, like 
Senator Rubio, are now using this crucial program, which has 
historically enjoyed bipartisan support, for political theater.
  This vote is only one part of a broad and sustained assault by 
Republican politicians on Americans' healthcare, including patients' 
rights to make decisions about their own bodies. Through repeated 
efforts to limit birth

[[Page S2181]]

control access, to defund Planned Parenthood, and to restrict 
abortions, Republicans are chipping away at Americans' health, at 
Americans' safety, and at Americans' economic independence.
  In 2018, the Title X Program served nearly 4 million people annually, 
but in 2019, the Trump administration issued a radical gag rule that 
decimated the title X provider network, causing more than 1,000 
healthcare centers to leave the program and severely restricting access 
to basic primary and preventive healthcare services. The COVID-19 
pandemic only made access to these services even more difficult, 
disproportionately harming low-income communities and people of color.
  By 2020, with the combined effects of the Trump administration's 
awful policy and the COVID-19 pandemic, the program was only able to 
serve 1.5 million people--less than half the number of people it had 
served in 2018. In Massachusetts, by January 2021, only one title X 
grantee remained, and six States had no title X providers at all even 
though the need had grown.
  Now, fortunately, last October, the Biden-Harris administration 
reversed Trump's radical assault on the Title X Program. That was an 
important victory which prioritized patients' needs, patients' health 
equity, and access to a broad range of services provided by title X 
providers.
  Now, however, Senator Rubio is once again trying to turn back the 
clock on healthcare and reproductive rights in what is just the latest 
attempt to deny people access to critical healthcare. If enacted, 
Senator Rubio's resolution would harm millions of Americans, people who 
rely on title X providers like Planned Parenthood, local health 
departments, and community health centers for family planning and 
sexual health services.
  Healthcare is a basic human right. Everyone deserves access to 
affordable family planning and sexual health services, from birth 
control to STI treatments, to pregnancy tests, no matter their ZIP 
Code, no matter their income. People of color, people living in rural 
areas, people living in medically underserved areas, and people with 
low incomes already face immense disparities in healthcare access and 
in health outcomes. If we return to this radical Trump-era policy and 
cut back on basic healthcare services, the effects will 
disproportionately harm communities of color, uninsured people, and 
low-income people, exacerbating existing health disparities.
  This vote couldn't come at a worse time. The United States is facing 
surging rates of sexually transmitted infections. On top of that, 
Americans are facing rampant attacks on abortion and reproductive 
rights all across this country. Abortion has been virtually 
inaccessible to millions of Texans for several months now.
  Even though the majority of Americans--the majority of Americans--
agree that Roe v. Wade should remain the law of the land, the Supreme 
Court is poised to overturn the decision in just 2 months. Meanwhile, 
Republican-controlled State legislatures, emboldened by our extremist 
Supreme Court, have passed over 500 anti-abortion bills this year 
alone. Just this month, three more States enacted clearly 
unconstitutional attacks on abortion, counting on an extremist Supreme 
Court to back them up later on.

  That is why now is the time to strengthen and expand access to 
critical birth control and other essential healthcare services that the 
Title X Program provides. That means not just defending title X but 
increasing funding for the program so that HHS can rebuild the title X 
provider network and adequately fund the providers, many of whom have 
already been approved for grants but who haven't received a single 
dollar because there simply isn't enough funding to meet the need.
  Let's be clear. This is not just about healthcare; it is yet another 
rightwing attempt to deny people--especially people of color, 
especially LGBTQ+ people, especially low-income people--the right to 
control their own futures. This is about economic justice. People who 
can't access basic reproductive and healthcare services cannot fully 
participate in our economy, and they have fewer economic opportunities 
going forward. An unplanned pregnancy can derail an education or the 
early steps of a career.
  So, today, I am fighting to defend title X--a program founded in 1970 
with bipartisan support. I am fighting to defend it from radical, 
rightwing attacks. Republican politicians may think that they will win 
by dividing Americans, but when it comes to the fight for reproductive 
rights, we will fight to ensure that every person gets the care they 
need.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.