Introduced by San Francisco Supervisors Ronen, Breed, Fewer, Kim, Cohen and Tang
WHEREAS, President Donald Trump and the 115th Congress have repeatedly threatened to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that provides coverage for women’s health services, and defund, cut funding to, or exclude women’s health providers from the Title X Family Planning Program and Medicaid; and
WHEREAS, Key members of the Trump administration including Vice President Mike Pence, Tom Price R-GA, nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Katie Talento, appointee to Trump’s Domestic Policy Council, and many others have been vocal in their opposition of access to contraception and abortion and support the repeal of the Affordable Care Act; and
WHEREAS, The Trump administration has taken steps to repeal the ACA, which would cut health coverage and required coverage for critical preventative and screening services for women, girls, transgender women and their families; and
WHEREAS, Under the ACA, women’s preventive health care services in reproductive, family planning and sexual health must be fully covered by the provider; and
WHEREAS, Women, girls, and transgender women are only safe and secure if they have access to the full range of preventive and reproductive health care services, including all Federal Drug Administration (FDA)-approved contraceptives, access to abortion, and preventative health care services including cancer screenings, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections (STIs), prenatal and postnatal care, medically-accurate, comprehensive sexual health education, and screenings for inter-personal violence; and
WHEREAS, Under the ACA, women have free access to birth control, which has been legal since 1965 and 99% of sexually-active women in the United States use birth control at some point in their lifetimes to plan their families, reduce unintended pregnancies, achieve greater financial security, and treat medical conditions; and
WHEREAS, Congress passed the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2013, which protects a woman’s right and ability to determine whether and when to bear a child or end a pregnancy by limiting restrictions on the provision of abortion services by individual states; and
WHEREAS, The Title X Family Planning Program is critical to women’s health in San Francisco because it is the only federal grant program dedicated to solely providing individuals with comprehensive family planning, reproductive and sexual preventive health services and education through a network of community-based clinics such as Planned Parenthood Northern California and the Women’s Community Clinic in San Francisco, and through the San Francisco Department of Public Health; and
WHEREAS, Medicaid funds are critical to women’s health in San Francisco because they sustain Medi-Cal and California’s Family PACT family planning program, allowing thousands of patients to access reproductive health care at low or no cost;
WHEREAS, Family planning and preventative health care, including cancer screenings, contraception, and abortion, promote healthy families and save taxpayers $7.09 for nearly every public dollar invested; and
WHEREAS, San Francisco’s support for family planning sits within robust support from the state of California through the Family PACT program, offers free reproductive and contraceptives to low income women, girls, and transgender women; and
WHEREAS, San Francisco’s approach to open access family planning has led the City to have a significantly lower rate of teen births at 10.2 per 1000 teens versus 24.2 per 1000 teens nationally; and
WHEREAS, San Francisco has a long history and proud legacy of leading the fight for women’s rights and championing the reproductive freedom of women; therefore be it
RESOLVED, That the Board of Supervisors will continue to prioritize protecting women, girls, and transgender women’s access to preventative care, birth control, family planning, reproductive and sexual health care, and sex education despite threats to cut federal funding to these programs; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Board of Supervisors will do whatever is necessary to defend and maintain the universal healthcare access of women, girls, and transgender women in San Francisco, including urging the State of California to protect women from federal attacks.
Recent Comments