Trump Administration’s Move Hits Abortion Clinics’ Funding

The Trump administration issued a rule Friday barring Title X funds from supporting programs and organizations that provide abortions or abortion referrals.

The rule states that “none of the funds appropriated for Title X may be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning.” The move will force Planned Parenthood and other abortion clinics to separate health services such as cancer screenings, pap smears, and breast exams from their abortion services, Politico reported.

Title X grant recipients were already banned from conducting abortions with these federal funds before Friday’s ruling, according to The Washington Post.

The rule also “requir[es] the physical and financial separation of Title X projects and facilities from programs and facilities where abortion is a method of family planning,” according to the text.

The rule will also force clinics to report cases of rape, incest, and human trafficking—as federal law already requires. Clinics must adhere to “documented compliance with State and local laws requiring notification or the reporting of child abuse, child molestation, sexual abuse, rape, incest, intimate partner violence, and human trafficking,” the rule states.

Planned Parenthood receives between $50 million and $60 million every year in Title X funds, according to Politico.

Planned Parenthood provides services to just over 40 percent of Title X patients, reported the Post, and “receives about $60 million from the program.”

Planned Parenthood has claimed stripping federal funds from the organization would devastate women’s access to health care.

“It is absolutely appropriate that the new Title X regulations take into account the difference between abortion and healthcare. Abortion is neither healthcare nor family planning which is why the Title X program has no business funding it,” March for Life President Jeanne Mancini said in a statement.

“The Title X program was not intended to be a slush fund for abortion businesses like Planned Parenthood,” pro-life Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser said, according to a press release, applauding the president’s move.

“This rule intentionally strikes at the heart of the patient-provider relationship, inserting political ideology into a family planning visit, which will frustrate and ultimately discourage patients from seeking the health care they need,” National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association CEO Clare Coleman said condemning the rule, Politico reported.

The final rule has been submitted to the Office of the Federal Register for publication. The regulations will become effective 60 days after being published in the Federal Register, and clinics will have additional time to comply.

Planned Parenthood did not respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment in time for publication.

Editor's note: Heritage Foundation President Kay Coles James issued a statement on the new rule:

This is a tremendous step toward getting taxpayers out of the abortion business, but two challenges still remain: 1) this rule, though fully within the authority of the administration, will be immediately challenged by the abortion industry and held up in court by liberal judges before it can be implemented; and 2) the biggest pot of taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood still remains intact: hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicaid funds annually.

After the incontrovertible evidence of Planned Parenthood harvesting and trafficking in the body parts of the babies it aborted, after the decades of documented child sexual abuse that Planned Parenthood has covered up, and after its own reporting shows that most of its health services are declining while it continues to increase abortions, I am confounded as to why any member of Congress thinks Planned Parenthood is a good—let alone moral—use of taxpayer money.

Congress must finish the job that President Trump has started and fully and finally get the taxpayer out of America’s biggest abortion business.

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