ACOG Celebrates the Restoration of the Title X Program

Washington, DC – The following is a statement from Maureen G. Phipps, MD, MPH, Chief Executive Officer of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), about Title X of the Public Health Service Act:

“ACOG is grateful to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for the proposed regulation restoring the mission of the Title X family planning program. Title X plays an essential role in ensuring that millions of women and adolescents have access to the full range of reproductive health care.

“Clinicians providing care to patients must be empowered to share the full spectrum of accurate medical information necessary to ensure that their patients are able to make timely, fully informed medical decisions. This means transparent, respectful, evidence-based conversations about contraception and abortion care. The proposed rule will ensure that those conversations can once again happen without restrictions, interference, or threat of financial loss.

“After the recent Title X restrictions were imposed by the prior administration, roughly 1,000 service sites—or a quarter of all Title X-funded sites—withdrew from the program. The impact of this loss has been especially felt by those already facing disproportionate barriers to accessing care, including the Black, Latinx and Indigenous communities that have also suffered the most harm during the COVID-19 pandemic. Restoring the Title X program will help to restore equitable access to needed family planning services, an essential part of comprehensive health care.

“As the only federal program exclusively dedicated to providing low-income patients, including adolescents, with access to family planning and preventive health services and information, Title X plays a vital role in the fabric of America’s family planning safety net. ACOG is pleased that the proposed regulation, once finalized, will enable millions of patients to receive evidence-based, respectful care from their clinician of choice, and health care professionals to deliver medically appropriate information and care to their patients.”