Essential Access Health, Nation’s Largest Title X Family Planning Grantee, to Sue Trump Administration

Harmful + Unlawful Regulations Threaten Access

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 28, 2019
Contact: Amy Moy, amoy@essentialaccess.org, 415.518.4465

Essential Access Health has announced that it intends to mount a robust and vigorous challenge to block the Trump Administration’s new Title X regulations from taking effect. Essential Access Health and the State of California will file lawsuits to ensure access to quality sexual and reproductive health care for all Californians. If implemented, the regulations would devastate California’s Title X family planning program and delay access to essential care for 1,000,000 low-income patients currently served by the program across the state each year.

The new Title X regulations are scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Monday, March 4. They represent some of the most extreme policy shifts in the history of the program. Title X was established in 1970, with bipartisan support by Congress, to ensure equal access to reproductive health services, including birth control, STD treatment and breast and cervical cancer screenings.

“As the leader of the largest and most comprehensive Title X network in the country – serving more than 25 percent of Title X patients nationwide, we have an obligation to take action to ensure that these harmful and unlawful regulations never take effect,” said Julie Rabinovitz, President and CEO of Essential Access Health. “The regulations completely undermine Title X’s mandate to make comprehensive family planning services available for all and threaten decades of public health advancements,” added Rabinovitz.

Essential Access Health’s lawsuit will include co-plaintiff Dr. Melissa Marshall, a family medicine doctor practicing at a Title X-funded health center in Yolo County, California.

“My patients count on me to give them unbiased information about all of their options for care. These regulations would dictate a different standard of care for low-income women seeking reproductive health services, and in doing so, promote unethical medical practices,” said Dr. Marshall. “They encourage misinformation and violate the trust my patients have that I will provide them with the best care possible,” Dr. Marshall continued.

Essential Access Health and Dr. Marshall are represented by a team at the law firm Keker, Van Nest & Peters, led by Michelle Ybarra.

Learn more about Essential Access Health's Title X program in California.