La Salle County 1 of 6 Central Illinois counties without a Title X provider

Aug. 19 marked a year since the Trump Administration took Planned Parenthood of Illinois out of the Title X program through a domestic gag rule, leaving La Salle County without a Title X provider.

Title X is a program that distributes about $260 million a year to clinics around the country in an effort to provide family planning services to about 4 million people, primarily low-income individuals. Planned Parenthood organizations across the country receive about 40% of all Title X funding.

More than 100,000 people in Illinois rely on Title X to access basic health care like cancer screenings, annual wellness exams, birth control and STI testing and treatment, according to an Aug. 19 news release.

La Salle County is one of six Central Illinois counties that lack a Title X provider. Macon, McLean, Peoria, Sangamon and Tazewell counties also are without providers.

"Without adequate funding, those most adversely affected by the Trump administration’s gag rule are low-income people, people of color, and undocumented folks who already face systemic barriers to accessing health care,” said Jennifer Welch, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Illinois. “PPIL remains deeply committed to providing uninterrupted access to essential health care services, information and education for all of our patients regardless of race, gender, income level or immigration status. Without Title X funding, we are providing more care with less funding, which is not sustainable over the long term.”

COVID-19 has exacerbated the disparities in existing health resources, which are being made worse by an accompanying economic crisis, Planned Parenthood Illinois said in the news release.

An estimated 5.4 million people have lost health insurance coverage nationwide between February and May.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated communities that were already struggling and often unable to access needed care,” said Dr. Amy Whitaker, chief medical officer at PPIL, in a news release. “It is unconscionable that the Trump administration continues to enforce this gag rule and deny patients access to time-sensitive and essential sexual and reproductive health care, including abortion, in the midst of a historic global pandemic.”

The gag rule makes it illegal for a Title X program provider to tell patients how or where to access abortion, and it imposes cost-prohibitive restrictions on health centers that provide abortion, which Planned Parenthood of Illinois officials called unnecessary. They refer to them as rules that forced Planned Parenthood health centers out of the Title X program.

The program was created in 1970 with a prohibition in place that would prevent the money from going toward paying for abortions, but according to an Aug. 20, 2019, Capitol News Illinois article, abortion opponents had been pushing for years to further prohibit money from going to any organization that provides abortion services or refers women to abortion providers, even if the funding for those services comes from separate sources.

Religious conservatives see the Title X family planning program as providing an indirect subsidy to Planned Parenthood, which runs family planning clinics and is also a leading abortion provider.