House Appropriations Committee Majority Advances LHHS Appropriations Bill Attacking Sexual and Reproductive Health Care

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Yesterday, Republicans on the House Committee on Appropriations passed the fiscal year 2025 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (LHHS) funding bill out of the committee. The measure includes dangerous and unpopular provisions to block access to sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Passed out of committee by a vote of 31 to 25, the LHHS bill includes measures attempting to:

• “Defund” Planned Parenthood, blocking people who receive care through public health programs from accessing essential services like STI testing and treatment, cancer screenings, and birth control, at Planned Parenthood health centers which serve more than 2 million patients a year. Even more, 76% of Planned Parenthood health centers are located in health professional shortage areas, rural, and medically underserved communities.
• Eliminate funding for the Title X family planning program.
• Eliminate funding for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, while funding abstinence-only-until-marriage programs.
• Restrict access to gender-affirming care.
• Prohibit Medicaid from covering abortion through the discriminatory Hyde Amendment, and expand the harmful Weldon Amendment.
• Block Biden administration executive orders intended to increase access to abortion care post-Dobbs decision.
• Interfere with postgraduate training in abortion care, an essential component of medical education necessary to ensure the health and well-being of pregnant people.
• Block a proposed rule to prevent funding for direct assistance to low-income families with children from being misused to support anti-abortion centers.

“House Republicans opposed to abortion are up to their same old playbook of trying to restrict access to reproductive health care for millions of people across the country,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO, Planned Parenthood Action Fund. “By pushing through this LHHS bill, anti-abortion rights politicians are acting in defiance of the vast majority of their constituents who believe that the government has no right to control people’s personal health care decisions.”

The LHHS bill was introduced last month alongside other House appropriations bills that would attack sexual and reproductive health care and rights by reinstating the Trump-era expanded global gag rule; reversing the Department of Defense policy safeguarding access to reproductive health care for service members and their families; and overturning a District of Columbia law protecting employees from being fired for their personal reproductive health care decisions, among other harmful provisions.

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Planned Parenthood Action Fund is an independent, nonpartisan, not-for-profit membership organization formed as the advocacy and political arm of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. The Action Fund engages in educational, advocacy, and limited electoral activity, including grassroots organizing, legislative advocacy, and voter education.