The group announced a “seven-figure investment” on Thursday targeting Sens. Martha McSally of Arizona, Cory Gardner of Colorado and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. Each will face ads in their respective states.
The Title X program serves about 4 million people a year, according to HHS. Planned Parenthood covers 40% of Title X’s patients and has been involved with the program since it began, according to the organization. Critics say the “gag rule” would mostly affect communities of color, low-income people, the uninsured and rural residents.
The television ads unveiled Thursday, which do not explicitly reference abortion or the rule, urge voters to demand that the three senators “protect Title X” or “protect affordable health care.”
The ads look “to reach and mobilize key communities, such as Black women in North Carolina and the Latinx community in Arizona, that have been hit the hardest by the Trump administration’s attacks on sexual and reproductive health care programs, including Title X,” according to a statement from Planned Parenthood.
The campaign will feature television, radio, digital and mailed advertisements, per the group. The television ads in the three states as well as a radio ad running only in North Carolina clock in at six figures, Planned Parenthood Federal Advocacy Communications Director Sam Lau told CNN.
Planned Parenthood is not alone in using the Title X abortion referral rule — which still awaits a decision in appeals court — to pressure Republicans, with Democrats also highlighting the rule as a point of contention in Senate funding bills this session.
Source : CNN
