900 Abortion Clinics have lost Taxpayer Funding

Think a president can’t make much of a difference when it comes to abortion? Think again.

A new report indicates President Donald Trump has been responsible for de-funding almost 900 facilities that either perform or promote killing babies in abortions.

Last May, the Trump administration published a new proposal for Title X that would prohibit Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses from receiving any of those tax dollars unless they completely separate their abortion businesses from their taxpayer-funded services. That mean housing their family planning services in separate buildings with separate staff from their abortion businesses and a denial of funds if they fail to do so.

Federal courts eventually let the defunding rules move forward and eventually Planned Parenthood and other abortion activists left the Title X program and gave up $60 million of taxpayer dollars.

Now, an extensive report has been produced on just how many abortion centers lost funds.

Power to Decide, a pro-choice organization that works to prevent unplanned pregnancies, says in a new report that 876 clinics across the country have lost funding. Among them are clinics tied to Planned Parenthood, which announced in August it would forgo federal funding rather than abide by the rule.

The Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services this year began enforcing the new rule, which “prohibits the use of Title X funds to perform, promote, refer for, or support abortion as a method of family planning.”

“These centers must now decide between two options: accept funds to support their patients who might not otherwise be able to afford family planning care or withhold information from patients about abortion services,” Power to Decide said in its report.

But the Department of Health and Human Services said clinics that opted out of funding were choosing to “place a higher priority on the ability to refer for abortion instead of continuing to receive federal funds to provide a broad range of acceptable and effective family planning methods and services.”

Title X funds are supposed to be used to help low-income women and men receive birth control, cancer screenings and other health care services. While the tax money cannot be used to pay for abortions, it indirectly funds Planned Parenthood’s vast abortion business.

In June, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the Trump administration’s request to lift national injunctions ordered by lower federal courts in Oregon and Washington state, as well as a statewide injunction in California.

That set up implementation of the new rule .

But Planned Parenthood made one last-ditch effort to get the 9th Circuit to stop the pro-life rules, which is declined to do.

“We thank President Trump for taking decisive action to disentangle taxpayers from the big abortion industry led by Planned Parenthood,” said SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser.

She told LifeNews: “The Protect Life Rule does not cut family planning funding by a single dime, and instead directs tax dollars to entities that provide healthcare to women but do not perform abortions. The Title X program was not intended to be a slush fund for abortion businesses like Planned Parenthood, which violently ends the lives of more than 332,000 unborn babies a year and receives almost $60 million a year in Title X taxpayer dollars. We thank President Trump and Secretary Azar for ensuring that the Title X program is truly about funding family planning, not abortion.”

National Right to Life president Carol Tobias also praised President Trump and noted that the decision doesn’t adversely affect women’s health because the federal funds will go to legitimate family planning efforts instead of places that kill babies in abortions.

“We thank President Trump and Health & Human Services Secretary Azar for their numerous actions to restore pro-life policies,” she told LifeNews. “We are encouraged to see the announcement of Title X regulations that are back in line with previous policy that prevents federal dollars from being used to directly or indirectly promote abortion domestically.”

According to National Right to Life, during the Reagan Administration, regulations were issued, with National Right to Life’s strong support, to restore the original character of Title X by prohibiting referral for abortion except in life endangering circumstances. Additionally, abortion facilities could not generally share the same location with a Title X site.

In the 1991 Rust v. Sullivan decision, the U.S. Supreme Court found similar regulations permissible.

However, the Clinton Administration would later reverse these regulations.

A recent Marist poll found that, by a double-digit margin, a majority of all Americans oppose any taxpayer funding of abortion (54 percent to 39 percent).