Trump administration will cut funds to Planned Parenthood for abortion services - Rick Moran

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by Rick Moran

New rules in funding Title X family planning programs will take the emphasis off abortion.

The Trump administration will issue sweeping new rules on government funding of family planning facilities that will include denying money to Planned Parenthood facilities that refer clients for abortions.

Planned Parenthood allies are screaming about the cuts, but in actuality, none of PP's "women's health" services is affected. Birth control and medical care for poor women will continue to be funded. The new rules also do not impact Medicaid payments.

But the rule changes will affect Planned Parenthood's involvement in abortions.

Yahoo News:

The major changes include a new requirement that all participating Title X providers "maintain physical and financial separation from locations which provide abortion as a method of family planning." This means that any clinic or doctor's office that also offers abortions is no longer allowed to receive federal grants that would help provide free or low-cost birth control for low-income women.
Although a spokesperson from the Health and Human Services Department, which oversees Title X, told Refinery29 via email that the Trump administration "seeks to serve more women and men than previously served in the Title X program," advocates say the new changes will do precisely the opposite.
Reproductive rights advocates say this is a direct attack on Planned Parenthood, which via the organization's nationwide network of family planning clinics, is currently the largest provider of Title X-funded birth control services. Roughly 41% of patients receiving birth control funded by Title X get those prescriptions at a Planned Parenthood clinic. Reproductive rights advocates say this is a direct attack on Planned Parenthood, which via the organization's nationwide network of family planning clinics, is currently the largest provider of Title X-funded birth control services. Roughly 41% of patients receiving birth control funded by Title X get those prescriptions at a Planned Parenthood clinic.

The new rules will not prevent anyone from getting birth control pills. It's a straw man argument to claim otherwise.

The new rules also include strict guidelines around what participating providers can and cannot say about pregnancy and abortion. In short, participating providers will no longer be required to offer both pregnancy or abortion counseling, as they were before. Now they are only permitted to offer "nondirective pregnancy counseling" and crucially, they are prohibited from even referring women to abortion providers.
Reproductive health experts have referred to this change as a "gag rule" because it limits what providers can and cannot say to patients. Major medical associations including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the American Medical Association have opposed the rule on the grounds that it violates medical ethics to keep information from patients.

It's unclear how many of these rule changes will survive a court challenge, but with the overly broad definition of "women's health" used by Planned Parenthood and its allies, some of the rule changes will almost certainly be struck down. What the rules do is take the emphasis in Title X off abortion and put it where it belongs: the reproductive and physical health of women.

Rick Moran

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/02/trump_administration_will_cut_funds_to_planned_parenthood_for_abortion_services.html

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