Yesterday, the United States House of Representatives voted to overturn former-President Barack Obama’s rule that forced states to fund Planned Parenthood. Before leaving office, anti-Life Obama did his friends at Planned Parenthood one last favor. In December, Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released new federal regulations attempting to thwart Pro-Life states from defunding Planned Parenthood.
The rules concern Title X Programs, a federal initiative to fund family planning services and preventative care for low-income women. The rules imposed by the Obama administration blocked states from denying abortion providers like Planned Parenthood from receiving Title X funding. Today, the House vote on H.J. Res. 43 was a step toward reversing the anti-Life policies of the last eight years. H.J. Res. 43 passed in the House with a vote of 230-188. If the Senate also passes the resolution and the legislation is signed by President Donald Trump, states would once again have the freedom to redirect Title X funding.
Texas and several other Pro-Life states have taken steps to exclude Planned Parenthood affiliates and other organizations that commit abortions from receiving Title X funds and taxpayer dollars from other funding streams. Texas legislators redirected millions of dollars from the abortion industry in 2011 to life-affirming initiatives and put in place Pro-Life rules on multiple family planning programs, including the Title X program.
The effort to overturn the Obama administration’s anti-Life rules was led by Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Representative Diane Black (R-Tennessee). The Pro-Life stalwarts argued for the necessity of this Pro-Life measure in a joint op-ed in the Washington Examiner. The pair writes:
According to its 2014-2015 annual report, Planned Parenthood performed 323,999 abortion procedures in just one year. Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize the abortion industry in this country. Nor should they be forced to foot the bill for an organization like Planned Parenthood that has displayed such blatant disregard for human life.
With a pro-life president in the White House and pro-life majorities in the House and Senate, we will continue to work together this year to undo the damage done by the Obama administration.
Texas Right to Life agrees that Pro-Life Americans should not be forced to give fungible tax dollars to the largest abortion business in America. Other states should be able to redirect funding to public health initiatives that do not harm the preborn and give women real health care options. In Texas, the Healthy Texas Women program and Alternatives to Abortion offer low-income women real choices. We applaud the House of Representatives for voting to support Pro-Life efforts like this in our state and in other states. We hope the Pro-Life majority in the Senate will also vote to overturn Obama’s anti-Life rules. Above all, we hope that Pro-Lifers in Congress and the Pro-Life president fulfill their promise to end all federal funding to Planned Parenthood, a criminal abortion business.
Send a message to your United States Representative. Let him or her know that Texans are watching to make sure this campaign promise is fulfilled. We will no longer give Planned Parenthood one red cent.
