CBS News97%
Trump administration shifts focus of Title X family planning program away from birth control 95%
4/13/2026, 11:45:36 PM
BS Summary: This video contains 28 faulty reasoning types, including Ambiguity (Equivocation), Appeal to Authority, and Framing Effect, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 34.1% saturation with 217 hits. Analysis detected 1,751 faulty-reasoning hits from 636 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 91.3% and a BS Rank of 95% (989 of 16,813 videos). This video is worse (more manipulative) than 94.10% of the video peer group.
New data shows the US fertility rate fell to a record low in 2025.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the general fertility rate for women ages 15 to 44 fell by 1% last year, marking a roughly 23% decrease
from its peak in 2007.
The current figure stands at about 53 births for every 1,000 women in that age range, down from a high of roughly 69.
The new information comes after the Trump administration announced changes to the Title X family planning federal grant program.
The new guidelines include the promotion of quote natural family planning methods rather than traditional hormonal birth control.
It also informs clinics participating in the program that they must end diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts and ensure federal resources are not used to quote facilitate or incentivize illegal immigration.
CBS News medical contributor Dr. Celine Gounder joins us now.
She's also editor-at-large for Public Health at KFF.
Health News. So, Dr., what is Title X and why do these changes matter?
Title X was signed into law under President Nixon in 1970 and this was with bipartisan support, both Republicans and Democrats understanding that low-income families needed help to be able to access and afford birth control so that they could plan when and how many children that they had.
Today, the program serves some 3 million patients a year at about 4,000 clinics across the country.
They offer not just birth control, but also testing for sexually transmitted infections, which can lead, by the way, to infertility, as well as screening for various different kinds of cancer like cervical or breast cancer.
And six out of 10 patients who are seen in Title X clinics say that is the only place where they receive health care.
So, what does this new government document actually say?
Well, there's clearly a shift in, if you look at the kind of language that they use, they only mention contraception once in the entire document.
There's a lot of use of the words chronic diseases, body literacy, in other words,
following your own period tracking to understand when you might be most fertile or least likely to get pregnant during your period, your monthly cycle.
Terms like IUD or condom or birth control do not appear in the document at all.
So, there's clearly a shift in
language from how do we prevent or plan pregnancy to how do we promote pregnancy?
What do you make of that and what does the science show when it comes to birth control?
Well, in terms of, you know, I think putting some of those statistics into context, on average, most women are still going to end up having on average two children per woman.
What we're seeing is that they're actually delaying pregnancy until maybe they're more secure in their career, their job, they have a more secure housing situation.
And so, that looks like a drop in the birth rate, whereas in fact, they're just waiting longer.
Um, but, you know, in in terms of what the science says,
I think there's been a lot of misinformation online, on social media about risks of contraception and I think it's really important to be clear.
With hormonal hormonal contraception, is there a risk of blood clots, as one example?
There is an increased risk, but pregnancy itself increases the risk of blood clots five to 20 times more than being on a hormonal contraceptive.
So, you really have to put things into context and yes, these are risks that women are going to be facing whether they're taking hormonal birth control or pregnancy, but pregnancy is by far the more dangerous situation there.
Celine Gounder, thank you.
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