Planned Parenthood's Clergy Advocacy Board Condemns the Trump Administration's Gag Rule

The following is a statement from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America's Clergy Advocacy Board (CAB). Since 1994, CAB has led a national effort to increase public awareness of the theological and moral basis for advocating reproductive health.

The Clergy Advocacy Board of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America condemns the Trump-Pence Administration’s proposed gag rule, prohibits doctors, nurses, hospitals, community health centers, and any other provider in the Title X program from telling patients how they can safely and legally access abortion.

This gag rule was designed to block millions of patients from access to birth control at Planned Parenthood health centers across the country. As clergy leaders, we see this egregious gag rule as yet another misguided attempt to impose one set of religious restriction into the private lives of Americans, to the detriment of women, families and the public health.

The clergy calling includes providing pastoral care to people facing medical decisions. Day in and out, clergy witness the importance of providing each patient the whole medical truth, protecting the integrity of the doctor-patient relationship, and ensuring access to the care that arises from these personal, private deliberations. Furthermore, our faiths and pastoral experience bear witness to the urgency and moral good in access to contraception, and keeping abortion safe and legal.

Thus, in the strongest terms, this Clergy Advocacy Board condemns this gag rule for bringing politicians into the exam room, impairing access to truthful medical information, undermining the patient’s moral agency, and for blocking access to preventive health care, including contraception and safe and legal abortion.