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Thursday evening the Trump administration announced a measure that pro-life advocates have been seeking since the Clinton administration — restoration of Reagan-era rules that “require a ‘bright line’ of physical and financial separation between Title X services and providers that perform, support, or refer to abortion as a method of family planning.” To understand Title X, and its role in the abortion debate, requires a bit of background.
Planned Parenthood — America’s largest abortion provider — receives more than $450 million annually in federal funding, a significant portion of its annual revenue. Most of that money (roughly 85 percent) comes through Medicaid disbursements. The Trump administration cannot strip those funds from Planned Parenthood without passing legislation — and that legislation would certainly be filibustered by Democrats.
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The rest of the federal money comes through Title X of the Public Health Service Act, a federal program that funds “family planning” services and authorizes the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to “make grants to and enter into contracts with public or non-profit private entities to assist in the establishment and operation of voluntary family planning projects which shall offer a broad range of acceptable and effective family planning methods and services.” At the same time, however, the enabling statute is crystal clear that “none of the funds appropriated under this subchapter shall be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning.”
In other words, the goal was to support “preventative family planning services” — contraception, for example — and abortion services are not “preventative.” While the purpose of the statute has long been clear, Democratic presidents have resisted proper enforcement and have allowed abortion-providing organizations such as Planned Parenthood ready access to Title X funds with minimal (and minimally effective) restrictions. In 1988, however, the Reagan administration provided the proper model for enforcement by promulgating regulations that attached three main conditions to the receipt of Title X funds.Read the rest of this NR editorial HERE and follow links below to related stories/opinions:
Trump Administration to Cut Off Abortion Providers from Family-Planning Funds
Defunding Abortion
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