The American Academy of Nursing urges the Trump-Pence Administration to remove the “gag” rule on Title X. This Administration’s actions attack the fundamental principle of ethical and evidence-based health care.
The Trump-Pence administration placed a domestic “gag” rule on Title X – one of the nation’s primary birth control and reproductive health care programs. The American Academy of Nursing is on record supporting evidence-based policies that ensure that all people have full access to affordable, sexual and reproductive health services; facilitate expansion of clinical knowledge and evidence-based women’s preventive health services, especially related to preventing unintended pregnancies; and assure that all women’s health care, including reproductive health services and policies that support those services, is grounded in scientific knowledge and evidence-based policies and standards of care.
The gag rule prohibits health care providers, including nurses and nurse practitioners, from referring their patients for safe, legal abortion. It removes the guarantee that a Title X patient receives full and accurate information about their health care from their providers.
Nurses are the most trusted professionals in the United Sates, and we have an ethical and moral responsibility to maintain this trust. Trust requires that health care providers give patients complete and accurate information about their health care so that patients can make meaningful, informed decisions about their own health. For nearly two decades, the Title X law has been clear– health care providers cannot withhold information from patients about their pregnancy options. The Academy strongly opposes this gag rule and demands that the rule be rescinded.
