Bill Text: CA AJR42 | 2017-2018 | Regular Session | Chaptered

California Assembly Joint Resolution 42 (Prior Session Legislation)

Bill Title: Title X: family planning.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 17-0)

Status: (Passed) 2018-09-05 - Chaptered by Secretary of State - Res. Chapter 198, Statutes of 2018. [AJR42 Detail]

Download: California-2017-AJR42-Chaptered.html

Assembly Joint Resolution No. 42

CHAPTER 198

Relative to Title X.

[ Filed with Secretary of State September 05, 2018. ]

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

AJR 42, Kamlager-Dove. Title X: family planning.

This measure would urge the United States Department of Health and Human Services to reevaluate any proposed rules that are dangerous to women and an intentional attack on reproductive and women’s health care. The measure would also urge that rulemaking be guided by science, data, and humanitarianism.

Fiscal Committee: NO

WHEREAS, Title X has been the nation’s family planning program for one-half century, providing low-income patients critical lifesaving screenings, birth control, and other essential services; and

WHEREAS, Title X services have led to a 30-year low of unintended pregnancy and the lowest teen pregnancy rate in history; and

WHEREAS, Title X is a fiscally responsible program, providing a net savings of $64,000,000 in California annually, and 75 percent of Americans support continuing it; and

WHEREAS, The Trump-Pence administration’s proposed rule is a dangerous departure from the successful Title X program with new regulations that create a “domestic gag rule” and new barriers for low-income women to access essential health services; and

WHEREAS, California law mandates that a physician provide informed consent of all medically safe options to their patients, but the Title X rule change proposed by the federal administration in May 2018 would “gag” physicians from having candid conversations with their patients, potentially putting the health and well-being of women at risk; and

WHEREAS, California patients make up 25 percent of Title X recipients nationwide, including over one million low-income patients, through Planned Parenthood and other Title X providers; and

WHEREAS, The current rates of sexually transmitted diseases, such as chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis, are of public health crisis proportions in California, and the loss of Title X services would only increase these rates; and

WHEREAS, The proposed new Title X rule is designed to decimate a woman’s right to have autonomy over her body, as established 45 years ago in Roe v. Wade, and create barriers to abortion services by limiting medically accurate health care information despite the longstanding prohibition of using federal funds, including Title X funds for abortion; and

WHEREAS, The Trump-Pence administration is using Title X and the rulemaking process as a vehicle for expressing hostility toward basic rights for women decades ago; and

WHEREAS, History has taught us and data has proven, from pre-Roe v. Wade America to the current targeted regulation of abortion providers (TRAP) laws of Texas and other states, to the Mexico City Policy, also known as the Global Gag Rule, that limiting information about or access to abortion increases dangerous “back-alley” abortions that put women’s lives at risk; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Assembly and the Senate of the State of California, jointly, That the Legislature urges the United States Department of Health and Human Services to reevaluate any proposed rules that are dangerous to women and an intentional attack on reproductive and women’s health care; and be it further

Resolved, That the Legislature urges that rulemaking be guided by science, data, and humanitarianism; and be it further

Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies of this resolution to the President, the Vice President, and the Attorney General of the United States, to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to the Majority Leader of the Senate, to each Senator and Representative from California in the Congress of the United States, to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, and to the author for appropriate distribution.