Christian nationalism theocracy attacks birth control

A NYT opinion (not paywalled) discusses the Christian nationalist attack on federal birth control programs. A bipartisan effort created Title X in 1970 as the first federal program dedicated to family planning and reproductive health. Title X was the government's responding to high rates of unintended pregnancy that fueled poverty, worsened health outcomes, and destabilized family life. The program, backed initially by bipartisan support and championed by President Richard Nixon, dramatically expanded access to contraception. The program is credited with preventing tens of millions of unintended pregnancies, sharply reducing teen birth rates, cutting child poverty, and saving governments substantial Medicaid costs, all while improving women’s physical and psychological health, economic stability, and children’s outcomes. Modern contraception is a medical miracle that has saved the lives of millions of women.

However, current Title X funding guidelines aim to redirect the program away from its core mission of preventing unintended pregnancies and toward promoting conception. This change in focus aligns with the priorities of anti-abortion activists, and MAHA-aligned wellness propaganda. The new guidance minimizes effective contraception, barely mentioning it while elevating “fertility-awareness-based methods”, which have much higher failure rates than IUDs and other modern methods. The theocratic guidance also prioritizes male fertility counseling and lifestyle issues like pornography use, low sperm count, and environmental toxins, while downplaying contraception’s role in healthy pregnancies and chronic-disease treatment. 

Although Biden-era rules still require Title X funds to support access to a range of modern contraceptives, they are vulnerable to reversal by theocratic zealots. The program has not recovered from Trump’s first-term restrictions that drove clinics out and halved the number of patients served. This shift directly threatens affordable contraception and the future of Title X. It also marks the collapse of a longstanding bipartisan consensus that even poor women should have the publicly supported ability to shape their own futures and families. Link, link, link