Trump’s Health Department Once Again Claims Women Can Get Birth Control Through a Program It’s Trying to Dismantle
03.13.19 – During today’s House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the 2020 budget, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar claimed that women whose employers refuse to provide birth control under rules his agency created can simply use Title X family planning clinics — despite the fact that our nation’s health department is working to undermine that program, too. Equity Forward issued the following statement in response:
“Azar’s cavalier attitude toward women who won’t be able to get birth control is a disgrace,” said Mary Alice Carter, Executive Director of Equity Forward. “From rules that give cover to employers who want to deny insurance coverage for birth control to dismantling our nation’s family planning program, Azar and his ilk are working overtime to rob women of their birth control access. Yet Azar has the gall to dismiss any concerns about this from members of Congress. On behalf of the over 99% percent of women who will use birth control at some point in their lifetimes, Alex Azar should be ashamed.”
The Trump administration made this absurd claim at least once before, and additionally misrepresented the potential harm of the Title X gag rule during a House subcommittee hearing yesterday. Equity Forward purchased a digital ad buy to run this week around Azar’s testimony to highlight the various ways he’s let ideology dictate policy at HHS.
[Watch on YouTube]
About Equity Forward
Equity Forward is a watchdog project that seeks to ensure transparency and accountability among anti-reproductive health groups and individuals. In addition to running HHSWatch.org, an extensive website with a library of research on nearly 50 political appointees at our nation's health department who are hostile to reproductive health care, Equity Forward also runs PutPeopleBeforePolitics.org, which calls on Secretary Azar not to cut nearly $100 million in lifesaving research at the behest of the anti-abortion lobby.
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