Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues in speaking about the harmful effects of this resolution of diapproval. And I want to thank the senator from Michigan for his words and for his very important point that we are at the lowers number of teen pregnancies for a long, long time. Why would you want to mess with something that is finally reducing the number of teen pregnancies? And I want to thank Senator Murray, who has been here diligently leading in this effort, because rolling this rule back will result in something very simple. It will result in less care for women and families. 

Title X funding supports vital family planning and related preventative care for low-income, uninsured, and young people across this country. Every year, more than 4 million people, including many living in rural and medically underserved areas, go to the over 4,000 health centers that reply on this funding. This includes 41 service sites in Minnesota that provide access to cancer screenings, and birth control, and testing for sexually transmitted infections. In fact, 40 percent of women who receive care at Title X clinics consider it to be their only source of health care. Forty percent. Incredibly important in rural areas.

You think of just recently in the last few years with the Zika scare, people that wanted to go and get birth control wanted to know what they could do to prevent themselves from getting Zika to save the lives of their babies. This is true. This is what's happening if they make these cuts.

The regulation we're voting on today should be commonsense. Funds will be awarded solely based on a provider's ability to serve a patient. And it guarantees that women have access to the care entitled to them under federal law. We should should be strengthening our efforts to provide better and more affordable care that best serves patients. Instead, repealing this rule will take away essential services from women when they need it most. By overriding this regulation, states will now pick and choose who provides these services based on arbitrary criteria that have nothing to do with the quality of services patients will receive. That should be our benchmark. The quality of services. 

When states have done this in the past, it blocked access to critical family planning and health care services for many women, including those in rural areas that rely on health centers that need these funds. As Senator Murray said this morning, women across the country have made it clear that restricting women's access to the full range of reproductive care is unacceptable. So, we have a situation, Mr. President, where this existing rule rule has yielded the lowest number of teen pregnancies in years. We have a situation where two of our Republican colleagues joined us in opposition to the reap. We have a situation where the Vice President of the United States has to come in and break a tie.

You know what I would say? I would say that this resolution should be diaspproved of--that rolling this rule back will result in less access to care for women and families, and this rule should stay in place.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.