Go to Content Go to Navigation Go to Navigation Go to Site Search Homepage

Established in 1970, Title X was created to provide affordable birth control and reproductive health care to people with low incomes, who couldn’t otherwise afford these services on their own.

Federal Title X funding was intended to ensure that every person — regardless of where they live, how much money they make, their background, or whether or not they have health insurance — has access to basic, preventive reproductive health care.

What Health Care Services Does Title X Provide?

In 2016, before Donald Trump became president, more than 4 million people a year relied on the affordable birth control and reproductive health care services that were provided through Title X. Many of these people didn’t even know Title X exists, but without it, they wouldn’t have been able to access this essential care. The basic primary and preventive health care services provided by Title X include:

  • Wellness exams

  • Lifesaving cervical and breast cancer screenings

  • Birth control

  • Contraception education

  • Testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and HIV testing

The Gag Rule That Undermined Title X

In 2019, the Trump administration implemented a harmful Title X gag rule. The rule banned doctors in the Title X program across the country from telling people how they could safely and legally access abortion. This made it impossible for patients in the program to get birth control at places like Planned Parenthood — and prohibited doctors and nurses from giving people full information about all of their sexual and reproductive health care options. 

Until the Title X gag rule was imposed, Planned Parenthood health centers served 41% of the 4 million patients — or more than 1.6 million people — who got care through the Title X program. The new rule forced Planned Parenthood health centers, along with many others, to withdraw from the Title X program. According to the Guttmacher Institute, the gag rule has slashed the program’s national family planning network’s patient capacity in half. 

In many communities, Planned Parenthood is the only source of sexual and reproductive health care. When patients can’t seek care from Planned Parenthood, many have nowhere else to go. 

Who the Title X Gag Rule Harms Most

Because of racism, homophobia, transphobia, and other systemic barriers that contribute to income inequality, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and people in rural areas make up a large proportion of people who rely on Title X to access health care.

In 2017, 21% of patients in the Title X program identified as Black or African American, and 33% identified as Hispanic or Latino. The gag rule was no isolated attack; it was a tactic to deny health care to those who need it the most. Black and Latino communities, in addition, have suffered disproportionate deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic — amplified by the harmful effects of structural inequities in our public health system. Placing potentially life-saving preventive care further out of reach inflicts further harm on people in those communities.

For people of color, the right to bodily autonomy and quality health care has been consistently under attack in this country — leading to huge disparities in sexual and reproductive health outcomes between women of color and white women. By undermining Title X, the Trump administration limited health care options even further, and worsened massive inequities that have long existed in American society.

  • Even before the Title X gag rule, nearly half of transgender people said they had delayed or forgone getting health care because they couldn’t afford it. The gag rule put affordable health care out of reach for even more trans people.

  • Black women face delayed health diagnoses, higher rates of cervical cancer, and increased mortality rates for breast and cervical cancer. The gag rule placed critical health services — like breast and cervical cancer screenings — further out of reach.

  • More than half of Planned Parenthood health centers are in rural or underserved communities — where access to health care is already severely limited.

The Biden Administration Must Restore & Improve Title X 

Title X was created to ensure that millions of women, men, and young people get the care they need. Without it, providers can’t meet the demand for health care.

By scrapping the destructive Title X gag rule — a process the Biden administration began on January 28, 2021 — the Biden administration can build back this vital program for the people who need access to affordable birth control and reproductive health care. Our federal programs must truly meet 21st century patient needs, inclusive of people of all ages and genders.

Latest Blog Posts

View All

Gender Affirming Care is Essential, Life-Saving Care

Trans and nonbinary people deserve to live full, healthy lives. Yet, politicians across the country are hellbent on banning access to gender-affirming care, particularly for young people.

Nov. 28, 2023

The Abortion Rights Lie Detector: If House Republicans Say These Things, They’re Lying

We must be prepared for the lies these politicians will tell to attempt to cover their records. They’ve said what they’ve said, and they’ve done what they’ve done — and we have the receipts.

Nov. 22, 2023

We and our third partners use cookies and other tools to collect, store, monitor, and analyze information about your interaction with our site to improve performance, analyze your use of our sites and assist in our marketing efforts. You may opt out of the use of these cookies and other tools at any time by visiting Cookie Settings. By clicking “Allow All Cookies” you consent to our collection and use of such data, and our Terms of Use. For more information, see our Privacy Notice.

Cookie Settings

We, and our third-party partners, use cookies, pixels, and other tracking technologies to collect, store, monitor, and process certain information about you when you access and use our services, read our emails, or otherwise engage with us. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences, or your device. We use that information to make the site work, analyze performance and traffic on our website, to provide a more personalized web experience, and assist in our marketing efforts. We also share information with our social media, advertising, and analytics partners. You can change your default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our Necessary Cookies as they are deployed to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information, please see our Privacy Notice.

Marketing

On

We use online advertising to promote our mission and help constituents find our services. Marketing pixels help us measure the success of our campaigns.

User Feedback and Session Replay

On

We use qualitative data from LogRocket, UserZoom, Hotjar and AB Tasty to learn about your user experience and improve our products and services. LogRocket allows us to view session replays.