By Paige Winfield Cunningham
THE PROGNOSIS
Antiabortion activists gather outside the Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis. (Jeff Roberson/AP)
Planned Parenthood is voluntarily exiting the federal family planning program under new restrictions from the Trump administration.
And its decision helps the president cement his popularity with abortion opponents ahead of 2020.
Yesterday, the women’s health and abortion provider said it’s leaving Title X, a program that gives around 90 grantees about $260 million every year for providing about 4 million low-income women with contraception along with screenings for sexually transmitted diseases and breast and cervical cancer. It’s a major shake-up, considering Planned Parenthood clinics are the single-largest provider of Title X services.
The Title X funds already couldn’t be used for abortions. But a new Department of Health and Human Services rule goes further by banning participating clinics from referring for abortions and requiring financial separation from facilities that provide abortions. Planned Parenthood officials, who are fighting the rule in court, said they’d rather leave the program entirely than comply with the new requirements.
“We will not be bullied into withholding abortion information from our patients,” said Planned Parenthood acting president Alexis McGill Johnson. “Our patients deserve to make their own health care decisions, not to be forced to have Donald Trump or Mike Pence make those decisions for them.”
The decision means President Trump can claim he “defunded Planned Parenthood,” one of four promises he made to antiabortion groups back in 2016 to win their support.
Abortion foes have long begrudged Planned Parenthood the federal funds it collects, arguing there should be no co-mingling of taxpayer dollars and organizations that provide abortions. Adopting that stance helped Trump gain more confidence from the antiabortion community, which distrusted him immensely during the Republican primary.
Now, these groups view the president as a close ally. They were firing on all cylinders yesterday against Planned Parenthood's contention that it was forced from the Title X program.
Antiabortion group Susan B. Anthony List, whose president Marjorie Dannenfelser chaired Trump's “Pro-Life Coalition” in 2016: