The House approved a $515.7 billion domestic spending bill on Monday that will greatly increase Title X funding. The family planning program would receive $300 million, a $17 million increase over last year. The bill maintains 2007 funding levels for community-based abstinence only programs, reports the Daily Women’s Health Policy Report.
The bill leaves out language that would reverse the Global Gag Rule. However, it does include a measure that “severs overseas AIDS relief from abstinence-education mandates,” according to the Washington Post.
“This legislation shows that elections truly do matter,” said NARAL Pro-Choice America President Nancy Keenan in a press release. “For the first time in recent memory, congressional leaders are making a clear investment in family planning, while finally putting the brakes on Bush’s failed abstinence-only’ programs. I am pleased that the new leadership in Congress is putting Americans’ best interests first, rather than responding to the president’s political ideological agenda.”
