"PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP [PARTIALLY] DEFUNDS PLANNED PARENTHOO, WILL CUT ALMOST $60 Million IN TAXPAYER FUNDING" - Micaiah Bilger, May 18, 2018| http://www.lifenews.com/2018/05/18/president-donald-trump-defunds-planned-parenthood-will-cut-almost-60-million-in-taxpayer-funding/ [NOTE: Just to clarify the title of this article - the action by President Trump only partially helps defund Planned Parenthood. Read below. Le't pray for the day when PP will be totally defunded by the federal government!]
The United States spends about $260 million in Title X funds annually for family planning for low-income individuals, and Planned Parenthood is a huge recipient of those funds, as much as $50-$60 million annually.
But under the proposed “Protect Life Rule,” Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses would not receive any of those tax dollars unless they completely separate their abortion business from their taxpayer-funded services, The Washington Examiner reports. That would mean housing their family planning services elsewhere — potentially in separate buildings and coordinated by separate staff and organizations from its abortion enterprise.
“This proposal does not necessarily defund Planned Parenthood, as long as they’re willing to disentangle taxpayer funds from abortion as a method of family planning, which is required by the Title X law,” a Trump administration official said. “Any grantees that perform, support, or refer for abortion have a choice – disentangle themselves from abortion or fund their activities with privately raised funds.”
Of course, Planned Parenthood is unwilling to do so. Abortion is its primary focus, and it already is threatening a lawsuit to stop the defunding. However, the proposal is modeled after similar Reagan administration rules that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld in Rust v. Sullivan in 1991. Planned Parenthood Vice President Dawn Laguens quickly slammed the proposal with an absurd claim that her abortion chain is the only place women can go for basic health care.
“This is an attempt to take away women’s basic rights, period,” Laguens said. “Under this rule, people will not get the healthcare they need. They won’t get birth control, cancer screenings, STD testing, and treatment, or even general women’s health exams.”
Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser refuted this by pointing to the growing number of community and rural health centers that far outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities.
“We thank President Trump for taking action to disentangle taxpayers from the abortion business,” Dannenfelser said. “Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion business, is responsible for more than 300,000 abortions a year and has been receiving $50-60 million in Title X taxpayer funds annually. The Protect Life Rule doesn’t cut a single dime from family planning. It instead directs tax dollars to Title X centers that do not promote or perform abortions …”
Here’s more from the Washington Examiner:
The proposal, which is being filed with the Office of Management and Budget, is based off a policy from when Ronald Reagan was president. An administration official denied that the proposal would contain a “gag rule” preventing doctors from counseling women about abortion, as several news reports have stated, though acknowledged that the rule would no longer contain a mandate that clinics must counsel and refer for abortion. …
The Department of Health and Human Services said that the proposal was being filed in order to “ensure compliance” with laws that prohibit federal funds from going toward abortions. The amount the federal government spends on family planning services, including birth control, STD testing, and cancer screenings, will not be cut. The program covers 4 million low-income people.
Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins praised the proposed rules.
“You can really see how insidiously entangled the abortion industry is in our government run healthcare programs when abortion allies in Congress get apoplectic because family planning programs don’t require a sales pitch to end the lives of family members,” Hawkins said. “The Trump Administration has every right to require that Title X programs focus on healthcare, not abortion …”
The proposal comes amid strong pleas from grassroots Americans and members of Congress to defund the abortion giant Planned Parenthood. In April, 154 U.S. House members sent a letter to HHS Secretary Alex Azar asking for a rule to prohibit tax dollars from being use to promote abortions. Title X funds are supposed to be used to help low-income women and men receive birth control, cancer screenings and other health care services. While the tax money cannot be used to pay for abortions, it indirectly funds Planned Parenthood’s vast abortion business.
The Trump administration has cut several other streams of funding to Planned Parenthood as well. Soon after Trump took office, he signed the Mexico City Policy to prevent the funding of groups that promote or perform abortions overseas. This includes the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which received tax dollars under the Obama administration.
In addition, in 2017, the Trump administration cut millions of dollars in grants to Planned Parenthood through the failed Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program. HHS spokesman Mark Vafiades told the New York Times last year that there is very little evidence that the program was successful. However, the abortion chain recently filed a lawsuit challenging the cuts.
Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion business in America, aborting approximately 320,000 unborn babies every year. Its most recent annual report showed a record income of $1.46 billion, with about half a billion dollars coming from taxpayers.
In December, the U.S. Department of Justice said it is investigating whether the abortion chain illegally sold aborted baby body parts.
SIGN THE PETITION! Congress Must De-Fund Planned Parenthood Immediately - https://www.gopetition.com/petitions/congress-must-de-fund-planned-parenthood-immediately.html
[italics and colored emphasis mine]
"Trump's New Regs Move Tax Dollars away from Abortion" - Tony Perkins, Washington Update, May 18, 2018; https://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=WA18E37&f=WU18E12
"It's a big day in Washington where an injustice a quarter of a century in the making is finally being corrected. It was January 22, 1993 -- the 20th anniversary of Roe v. Wade -when then President Bill Clinton suspended President Ronald Reagan's regulation preventing federal Title X funds from going to family planning clinics where abortions are performed. Unbelievably, Clinton even went so far as to require every provider to refer for abortion, which disqualified pro-life and faith-based groups that have religious and moral objections to abortion from participating in the program.
Since then, Planned Parenthood and other abortion centers have used these federal family planning programs as a slush fund to pay overhead expenses including staff salaries, facility rent, and even furniture. Sadly, no president over the past 25 years has stopped this co-mingling of taxpayer funds with the abortion industry -- that is until today.
Under President Trump's rule announced today, like Reagan's, Planned Parenthood and other abortion centers will have to choose between dropping their abortion services from any location that gets family planning dollars and moving those abortion operations offsite. Either way, this will loosen Planned Parenthood's grip on more than $60 million in taxpayer dollars. The new regulations will draw a bright line between abortion centers and family planning programs -- just as the federal law requires and the Supreme Court upheld in a 1991 ruling...
With hundreds of millions at stake, Planned Parenthood's PAC announced last month that they will spend $ 30 million dollars on the midterm elections. Obviously, it's illegal for Richards to use even a cent of federal funds on the group's political activities. And while her accountants use every possible trick to keep the monies separate, it is hard to separate the fact that $30 million is available to influence elections because the outcome of those elections has produced nearly a half a billion dollars of government money to fund their Leftist mission. In the meantime, President Trump is following through on his campaign promise that his administration will advocate for mothers and their unborn children every day he occupies the White House and take important steps to ensure taxpayers are not subsidizing the abortion industry. Join me in thanking the president by sending him an email of appreciation via the White House comment page. - https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
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