Planned
Parenthood Gives Up Fight Over Title X Funds
(Funds
help low-income women with health care)
Trump upped his attack on health care and more so for
women and specifically for low-income and struggling poor women vis-à-vis their
reproductive rights – cite this headlines:
“Planned Parenthood Ends Access to
Title X Services” reported on here
from CBS News – background and highlights with 5-minute CBS video
follow:
Planned
Parenthood said all of its clinics will formally leave Title X, the marquee
federal program dedicated to providing birth control to low-income women. A
change to the program last year requires beneficiaries to comply with a
so-called “gag order on abortion services,” something that Planned Parenthood
said it isn't willing to do. The clinic's exit will result in a loss of
millions of federal dollars.
Planned Parenthood President
Alexis McGill Johnson said all the healthcare clinic's affiliates would
be sending letters to DHS formally announcing their resignation from Title X,
and she warned that without Planned Parenthood, low-income women in rural areas
would struggle to find affordable birth control options, saying: “For too many
people struggling to make ends meet, it may be that they may go without care.”
FYI: Title X
was created in 1970 to provide affordable reproductive care to women who
otherwise couldn't afford it. Last year, more than four million people relied
on Title X for health care services, 41% of whom received services at Planned
Parenthood, according to the health clinic.
Further, Title X
funds have never
been authorized to pay for abortions.
Instead, the
money is used for wellness exams, STD and HIV screenings, birth control, and
contraceptive education. Anti-abortion rights
advocates argue that any money given to Planned Parenthood — even if it's not
used for abortions — frees up funding to be used for the procedure.
In February,
a DHS 312-page
filing proposed what abortion rights advocates have referred to as a
“gag rule.”
Under that
proposal, DHS wrote that “none of the funds appropriated for Title X may be
used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning.”
The changes
impact not just Planned Parenthood, but any clinic that supports, performs or
even refers patients for abortion services.
Under the
new rule, recipients of Title X funds can reference abortion as an option to
pregnant women, but they are not allowed to refer them to an abortion provider
The Trump trigger for this latest Planned Parenthood action
from CBS
News (July 15, 2019).
Effective
immediately, family planning clinics that are funded by taxpayers must stop
referring women for abortions this according to the Trump administration.
HHS formally
notified clinics that it will begin enforcing the ban on abortion referrals,
along with a requirement that clinics maintain separate finances from
facilities that provide abortions.
HHS issued
the notification ahead of a planned conference with the clinics. In addition to
the rule on separate finances, another requirement that both kinds of
facilities cannot be under the same roof will take effect next year.
Religious conservatives
hailed the new regulation, while medical organizations and women's rights
groups denounced it.
The head of
a national umbrella group representing the clinics said the administration is
following “an ideological agenda that could disrupt basic health care for many
low-income women.”
My 2 cents: Whatever either or any side says or does –
this is vintage Trump and the stale worn-out GOP issue we have heard since Roe v. Wade (1973) now nearly 50 years ago.
We have to deal with until Trump is removed from office
(McConnell and his GOP Trump lackeys would never allow that), or …
We hang on until November 2020 and keep our fingers crossed
that he loses and if he does hold our breath until January 20, 2021 that he
does nothing totally crazy. Then sanity may prevail with a DEM president and
hopefully new DEM senate and sustained DEM House.
Thanks for stopping by.
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