Senator Murray: Trump-Pence Women’s Health Gag Rule “Meant To Do One Thing And One Thing Only: Further Erode Women’s Constitutionally Protected Rights”

Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, issued the following statement on the Trump-Pence administration’s rule making it illegal for health care providers at clinics that receive Title X family planning program funds to refer patients for abortions. 

 “This gag rule is meant to do one thing and one thing only: further undermine a woman’s constitutionally protected right to safe, legal abortion in the United States of America. Under this rule the doctors and providers who millions of women trust—disproportionately women of color and women who rely on clinics for affordable care—will be blocked from offering them the full range of medically sound reproductive health options because politicians in the White House think they know better. Well, my message is that extreme Republicans absolutely do not know better than women about women’s health care, and we are going to make sure we are heard.”

The rule also imposes medically unnecessary restrictions on providers within the Title X program with the intention of excluding Planned Parenthood centers from eligibility. The Title X program as it currently operates has consistently received bipartisan support in Congress.