Over the summer Planned Parenthood and other “healthcare” providers forfeited millions of dollars of federal funding in protest of new abortion restrictions under the Title X family planning grant program.
This week, the Trump administration announced it will reallocate $34 million that would have gone to abortion providers, distributing it among 50 grantees that decided to comply with the restrictions, The Hill reported.
Title X grants go toward providing birth control and non-abortion reproductive services for millions of low-income Americans. The $34 million will go to grantees in Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Pennsylvania, and other states.
As CBN News reported last month, the new rules prohibiting clinics that receive federal funds from referring patients for abortions dealt a severe blow to the nation’s largest abortion provider. In previous years, Planned Parenthood has received almost $60 million in Title X grants.
Though Title X funds already don’t cover abortion, the Trump administration introduced the new rules in an effort to send a message to organizations that consider abortion to be just another form of family planning.
In a statement last month, Planned Parenthood called the Trump administration’s new policy “dangerous,” deeming it an “unethical gag rule” for clinicians who perform abortions.
Others were quick to call their bluff.
“This will feed Planned Parenthood’s reality distortion field that, despite being one of the most generously tax-funded nonprofits in America, it is somehow being attacked simply because the Department of Health and Human Services wishes to respect congressional intent,” Catherine Glenn Foster, the president of the pro-life organization Americans United for Life, said last month in a statement to The Christian Post. “And Congress was clear: Title X was never meant to fund abortions. The law is clear.”
Contrary to their claims of being essential to the health of American women, HHS spokeswoman Mia Heck noted last month that Planned Parenthood represents fewer than 400 of 4,000 service sites providing medical care to women around the country. Those seeking legitimate reproductive healthcare that doesn’t harm innocent lives will find plenty of options under the new Title X guidelines.