The Importance of Preserving Access to Care Through the Federal Title X Program

Signed into law by President Richard M. Nixon, Title X of the Public Health Services Act provides funds that enable low-income individuals to obtain essential, confidential preventive and reproductive healthcare at low or no cost. The services available through Title X health care providers include FDA approved-contraceptive methods and counseling services, preventive health visits, breast and cervical cancer screenings, screening and treatment for sexually transmitted infections (STIs), testing for HIV, pregnancy testing and counseling, and other patient education and/or health referrals. Title X plays a vital role in ensuring that safe, timely, and evidence-based care is available to every person in need of obstetric or gynecologic care, regardless of their financial circumstances. The Title X program has improved the lives of patients and their families, enabling countless patients to achieve greater educational, financial, and employment success and stability. These public health strides help American society in many ways, including by saving taxpayer dollars. Millions of Americans receive reproductive health care and family planning services through Title X.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is the leading organization of physicians who provide health care to all people seeking obstetric and gynecologic health services. The College advocates for policies that ensure access to quality reproductive health care to patients throughout their lives and believes that a full array of clinical services should be available to individuals without costly delays or the imposition of cultural, geographic, financial, or legal barriers. As the only federal program exclusively dedicated to providing low-income patients with access to family planning and preventive reproductive health services and information, the College recognizes and affirms the critical role that Title X plays in ensuring that individuals can access needed health care. The College further recognizes and affirms the work of its Fellows who provide care for low income individuals at Title X facilities.

The College opposes efforts to undermine Title X, including efforts that restrict the ability of qualified providers to provide care through the Title X program, including to patients who otherwise face barriers to access. The College opposes efforts that seek to regulate the way in which Title X providers talk to their patients and that prevent Title X providers from sharing complete and accurate medical information, including referrals, necessary to ensure that their patients can make timely, fully informed medical decisions. The College further opposes efforts that threaten the quality of health care that individuals who rely on Title X receive, including efforts to permit Title X providers to exclude certain forms of FDA-approved contraceptive methods and/or to offer contraceptive methods that are not medically approved. ACOG supports patient centered care and reproductive autonomy including to Title X recipients. Restricting the ability of low-income individuals to obtain quality reproductive health care and medically accurate information will only increase rates of unplanned pregnancy, pregnancy complications, and undiagnosed medical conditions.

The continued availability of access to high quality, medically accurate and preventive health care through Title X is essential to confidential, preventive reproductive healthcare.

Approved June 2018
Reaffirmed July 2021
Amended and Reaffirmed September 2024