Planned Parenthood Statement on Trump’s State of the Union Address

Washington, DC — Alexis McGill Johnson, acting president & CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, issued the following statement in response to Donald Trump’s State of the Union address:

Statement from Alexis McGill Johnson, Acting President & CEO, Planned Parenthood Action Fund: 

“The state of our union in 2020 is clear — our rights and freedoms are on the line. Donald Trump and his administration are doing everything in their power to limit access to health care and abortion, and to control our bodies. Their policies have systematically worked to deny sexual and reproductive health care to and violate the rights of immigrants, people of color, and LGBTQ people across the country. His tokenizing of guests of color is particularly cruel in this context. In January alone, the Trump-Pence administration has attacked health care from all directions because they know the clock is ticking — voters are not on their side, and come November, time is up. The American people want elected officials who will expand their access to health care, not take it away, and we are grateful that Governor Whitmer and Congresswoman Escobar both addressed the urgent need to protect our health care in their speeches tonight. Our union is stronger when everyone can control their health, their rights, and their future.” 

The Trump-Pence administration is desperate to push their harmful agenda while they still have time, and they are abusing their power to undermine our health and rights: 

• The Trump-Pence administration has targeted immigrants and people seeking to enter the country since day one of this presidency, including cruel policies like the public charge rule, denying pregnant women visas, family separation policies, the Muslim ban, and restricting access to care for pregnant immigrants — to name just a few.
• Just last week, the administration announced a move to encourage states to overhaul Medicaid by imposing a block grant system, which would result in massive cuts to funding and could cause women with low incomes to lose access to their health care.
• Last month, the administration approved Texas’ requestto implement a Medicaid family planning program that bars patients from accessing care at Planned Parenthood. When Texas first barred Planned Parenthood from serving patients, nearly 40 percent fewer women got the health care they needed. This sets a dangerous precedent for other states, which could now pursue similar state-level measures with grim consequences for health care access nationwide.
• The administration’s domestic gag rule forced Planned Parenthood and other health care providers out of Title X, the nation’s only program dedicated to affordable birth control and other reproductive health care. The move jeopardized health care for Title X’s four million patients, 40 percent of whom received care at Planned Parenthood health centers prior to the rule. 
• Trump has packed the courts in unprecedented and extraordinary ways. 187 Trump-appointed judges now occupy lifetime positions on the federal bench, many with extreme records hostile to reproductive health and rights, and are poised to make decisions about our reproductive rights and health for a generation.
  • For the first time since Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch were seated on the Supreme Court, the court will be hearing arguments in a case this spring that could defy precedent and make the protections of Roe v. Wade virtually meaningless, paving the way for states to effectively ban abortion for over 25 million people of reproductive age.
• Trump’s global gag rule makes it harder for people across the globe to access basic and oftentimes life-saving health care, including contraception, HIV prevention and treatment, and reproductive, maternal, and child health services. Every day this gag rule is in place, more and more people suffer. 

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Planned Parenthood Action Fund is an independent, nonpartisan, not-for-profit membership organization formed as the advocacy and political arm of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. The Action Fund engages in educational, advocacy and electoral activity, including grassroots organizing, legislative advocacy, and voter education.