In late February, the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services issued a draft of the finalized rule changes to the Title X family planning program. Title X is a federal program that provides family planning services to low-income women. The changes would ensure that groups that commit or refer for abortions would no longer be eligible for funds through the program.
Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion business, stands to lose millions of dollars if the rules are implemented. The abortion giant has unleashed the pro-abortion media machine to demand that taxpayers continue to funnel money into a business that ends the lives of more than 320,000 preborn babies in abortions each year.
Last year, President announced these rule changes to the Title X program as part of his “Protect Life Rule.”
According to the document released by HHS on February 22, the aim of the rule changes is “to ensure compliance with, and enhance implementation of, the statutory requirement that none of the funds appropriated for Title X may be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning and related statutory requirements.” As Doreen Denny of Concerned Women of America explained, at the inception of the Title X program, stakeholders understood that abortion was not considered a form of “birth control” under the Title X rules.
The latest draft changes also require that a Title X provider be financially and physically separate from an organization that commits abortions. This is a significant step toward removing Planned Parenthood from taking in taxpayer dollars. Although news outlets claim that Pro-Lifers are exaggerating the problem with giving a massive abortion business taxpayer money for family planning services, the problem has not been fabricated or overblown by concerned Pro-Lifers.
News coverage mischaracterizes Pro-Lifers’ concerns saying, “the federal family planning money could be improperly commingled with funds used for the procedure.” There is no hypothetical. Due to fungibility, any money given to Planned Parenthood supports the operation of a business that kills preborn babies in abortions.
Abortion activists are firing up their base, encouraging anti-Lifers to protest the rules “if this shakes you to your core.” Others are portraying the rule change as an attempt to “essentially zero out groups like Planned Parenthood.” That is not the only option. The rule change forces Planned Parenthood to either cease the killing of the preborn through abortion or lose funding.
Planned Parenthood wasted no time in confirming that they would not halt abortions. In a statement of irony, Planned Parenthood president Leana Wen claimed, “Planned Parenthood cannot participate in a program that would force our providers to compromise their ethics.” Offering legitimate health services to low income women in underserved areas of the country would not “compromise their ethics.” Preying on those same underserved women by committing abortions that fund a lucrative business model? That seems to compromise ethics.
As previously reported by Texas Right to Life, the new rules also “include increased safeguards for victims of sexual assault by requiring clinics receiving Title X funds to document compliance with state laws for reporting instances of potential abuse. Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry have a dismal record of ignoring signs of abuse and returning victims to their abusers.”
As the Texas Right to Life Abortion Fact Sheet illustrates, federally-qualified health centers drastically outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities in every state. Planned Parenthood has shown time and again that the abortion organization is unequivocally in the business of abortion, not healthcare.
Shortly after taking office, President Trump halted funding to Planned Parenthood’s international arm. In 2017, the Trump administration also overturned a rule from the Obama era that blocked states from excluding Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses from receiving Title X funding. The revised rules for Title X funding is another positive step for mothers, babies, and taxpayers.
