By Judie Brown
The media is telling us that Planned Parenthood withdrew from the government’s family planning program, known as Title X, because it did not want to comply with President Trump’s new rule.
According to press reports, the problem is that, under this new regulation, abortion could not be referred elsewhere, nor could it be performed on site. Boo-hoo, right?
Well, not so fast. In a prepared statement, the White House explains that “the new proposed rule would not cut funds from the Title X program. Instead, it would ensure that taxpayers do not indirectly fund abortions. Contrary to recent media reports, HHS’s proposal does not include the so-called ‘gag rule’ on counseling about abortion that was part of the Reagan Administration’s Title X rule.”
Note the use of the word “indirectly” in the White House statement. We will explain in a moment.
Of course, the mainstream media is describing the proposed rule as a “gag rule,” which is another lie. According to the Department of Health and Human Services: “While Title X providers are prohibited from referring for abortion as a method of family planning, referral for abortion because of an emergency medical situation is not prohibited.”
TRANSLATION: Depending on the definition of “emergency medical situation,” it is clear that abortion referral is still permitted in some cases. Thus, the White House carefully chose the use of the word “indirectly.”
Further, the DHHS rule states: “If a woman is pregnant, a Title X provider may provide a list of comprehensive healthcare providers (including prenatal care providers), including some (but not the majority) who perform abortion as part of a comprehensive healthcare practice. However, this list cannot serve as a referral for, nor identify those who provide abortion—and Title X providers cannot indicate those on the list who provide abortion.”
TRANSLATION: The Title X recipient can tell expectant mothers where to go to procure an abortion-death for their babies as long as the list given to the client is not totally a list of abortion providers.
Sound like gobbledygook to you? It should, because the language is double-talk, plain and simple.
So while Planned Parenthood and its allies are grandstanding all over the place and decrying these new regs, it seems to us that its gruesome business model is not really going to be harmed in any meaningful way. Naturally, the media does not see it that way, but what else is new?
The important thing to remember about this latest splash in the media is that, according to competent pro-life researchers who study these matters, “Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, has used Title X as more or less a slush fund.” But now that more and more pro-life and faith-based groups are vying with Planned Parenthood for these funds, the fix has been in for some time, and Planned Parenthood has known it. Obviously, President Trump’s administration simply added a few regulations to make Planned Parenthood squirm, because the organization is no longer the only game in town.
And while Planned Parenthood president Alexis McGill Johnson is wringing her hands over the possible loss of the $60,000,000, saying, “Planned Parenthood is still open. We are continuing to fight this rule in court” and that the abortion company will do everything it can to “make sure that clinics could stay open,” the truth is that PP has more than enough money to function quite well without the Title X funds.
After all, its total take from our tax dollars alone—without any outside funding—is in excess of 500 million dollars! So clearly losing a little more than ten percent of that is really not a crisis for the abortion giant.
The fact is: “Even if every penny of the group’s $528.4 million in government funding ended tomorrow, the group would retain 59% of its current baseline income. One could grant a slight loss in client load due just to lower economies of scale, but even so, an estimated 1.6 million of Planned Parenthood’s current clients would remain covered by the group’s budget—without taking into account any internal reallocation of funds to low-income women, lower-cost centers, or lower-cost services.”
The facts, not the hysteria, lead us to conclude that we must continue to fight Planned Parenthood until it is no longer receiving any money at all with which to kill babies, steal souls, and ruin lives. Nothing less is acceptable!