The State of Women's Reproductive Rights Today

Steve Adubato sits down with Kaitlyn Wojtowicz, VP, Public Affairs, Planned Parenthood Action Fund of New Jersey, to discuss the state of women's reproductive rights in NJ and across the nation.  

3/28/2020 #208

Excerpt:

"Kaitlyn Wojtowicz is vice-president of public policy Planned Parenthood action fund of New Jersey good to see you Kaitlyn. Good to see you too Steve thank you so much for having me. Help us understand this what is title ten and why is this huge not just New Jersey but a national issue? Yeah thank you so much for the opportunity to talk about this title ten is the nation's only family planning funding program it's been around for decades and was actually started under a republican administration and was there to provide folks with low incomes access to reproductive health care which includes life-saving cancer screenings STI testing and treatment and birth control and contraception. If I’m not mistaken president trump his administration has put in what's called by some a quote unquote gag order which--yes means what as it relates to planned parenthood in this federal funding you cannot talk about what abortion so what the gag rule says is that any provider who receives title ten funding cannot talk about refer or counsel a patient on their options when it comes to abortion--what's wrong with that? I what's wrong with them not being able to talk about it. Yeah, say there are a fair number of people watching--sure. Right now say you know what I happen to believe I’m pro they would say I’m pro-life I don't believe that's the job of Planned Parenthood that's not why I respect what they do--mm hm...so you know what that's the President's right you say. We say that what the opposition to the gag rule that we have is about not having a politician or the trump pence administration come in between a doctor and a patient so when a patient steps into a room for their exam they find out they're pregnant their doctor should be able to tell them what all of their options are whether that's continuing the pregnancy and giving birth making an adoption plan or having an abortion and when a doctor is not able to provide a patient with all of the medically accurate information that they need in order to make the best decision for themselves their families and their lives that's just simply medically unethical and something that we can't stand for at planned parenthood .so to be clear planned parenthood then no longer is accepting title ten federal funds. We were forced out of the program because we refused to make our doctors conduct themselves in a medically unethical way and it's not just planned parenthood who believes this rule is medically unethical all the major medical organizations have also come out in opposition to it. So you're losing funding. We had to step away and we-- .federal funding. Correct but un-- fortunately in new jersey we were..."