Women’s March Statement on Biden Administration’s Reversal of Domestic Gag Rule

Washington, D.C. — On Monday, The Biden Administration repealed Title X's "domestic gag rule," a Trump-era rule that gutted funding for family planning and blocked providers from referring their patients for abortion. Women’s March Executive Director Rachel O’Leary Carmona issued the following statement in response;

“Women’s March is thrilled that the Biden administration has finally reverse the flawed and fatal decision that Trump and his anti-abortion allies made—one that prevented federally funded healthcare clinics from referring patients for abortions. This is a key step that so many in the gender justice movement have been calling for since Biden was first elected, and that we were still calling for as recently as this weekend, when hundreds of thousands to us took to the streets this weekend to march for abortion justice. 

This reversal to the Trump gag rule, which was devastating to Title X, is both necessary and long overdue. While it remained in place, nearly 1.5 million people, most of them low-income, lost access to a Title X-funded health provider. 

Title X reminds us that abortion is first and foremost an economic issue. Before Trump decided to implement the gag rule, almost 4 million low-income people relied on Title X funding to pay for much-needed services like cancer screenings, abortions, and birth control. When Trump weaponized Title X, those were the people—largely women—who were impacted. Those were the people whose healthcare was hurt. 

Biden’s ruling today doesn’t just advance reproductive freedom—it’s a win for economic justice, healthcare justice, and working families, who will finally once again be able to access the care they need. 

But we’re not going to mince our words: this alone isn’t nearly enough. We still need to eliminate the filibuster. We still need to expand the supreme court. And we still need to pass both the Women’s Health Protection Act to codify Roe v. Wade into federal law and the EACH act to end the Hyde Amendment. This fight doesn’t end until all of our rights are protected, and the Biden administration will continue to hear from our members until that happens.