By Jim Sedlak
Last September, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, along with about 90 like-minded groups, issued First Priorities: Executive and Agency Actions Blueprint for Sexual and Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice. As Joe Biden moves forward with his plans in case he is officially named as the nation’s 46th president, Planned Parenthood is now reminding Biden and all political leaders that they are expected to meet the demands of that document.
Some of Planned Parenthood’s demands are:
On day one, the president must issue an executive order unequivocally stating his commitment to protect and expand access to comprehensive reproductive health care, uphold sexual and reproductive rights, including abortion care, in the U.S. and around the world, and rescind or revoke prior executive actions limiting access to care.
Upon assuming office, the president must make a public statement that the U.S. will reengage on a global scale to advance the health and rights of individuals worldwide and take action to re-engage fully with the United Nations, including rejoining and re-funding the World Health Organization, and re-funding the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency.
Upon assuming office, the president must immediately halt all non-final regulations that will limit access to reproductive health care, including abortion.
Within 90 days of assuming office, the president must institute the following changes in policy and practice including, where appropriate, issuing guidance (we’ve added short statements in parentheses after the items to summarize what they mean):
- The FDA must review the REMS for mifepristone to determine whether a REMS remains necessary, or whether the goals and elements should be modified or removed from the approved strategy to best reflect scientific evidence and real-world use. (Let PP just mail the abortion pill to women, with no medical oversight.)
- The Department of Health and Human Services must protect patients’ choice of reproductive health care provider, in part by reinstating 2016 guidance reaffirming Medicaid’s free choice of provider provisions, and ensuring that states may not exclude qualified providers of reproductive health care from Medicaid for reasons unrelated to their qualifications, including their provision of abortion care. (Make sure PP has access to hundreds of million dollars in Medicaid money.)
- The Department of Health and Human Services must issue guidance on 1332 waivers aimed at improving access to health benefits and services. The guidance should be designed to encourage states to expand coverage for new populations (such as DACA recipients and undocumented immigrants) and to add benefits, and should affirm that waiver applications that do not comply with the four statutory guardrails of comparable services, affordability, number of people covered, and deficit neutrality will be denied. (Make sure PP has access to as much taxpayer money as possible.)
- The administration must use every mechanism at its disposal to encourage states to extend Medicaid and CHIP coverage to at least 12 months postpartum, including by issuing guidance, while ensuring continued Maintenance of Effort (MOE). (More taxpayer money for PP)
- The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) must rescind a 2008 policy that requires heightened ORR involvement in abortions and issue new guidance to ensure that all care facilities provide minors with timely, confidential access to family planning services, including pregnancy tests and comprehensive, nondirective information about and access to reproductive health services, such as abortion and contraception, including emergency contraception. It must also protect minors’ confidentiality and ensure their timely access to courts to seek judicial authorization for abortion, if needed. (Let PP kill more babies and make more money.)
- The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services must issue guidance to state Medicaid programs that federal law does not mandate the use of Explanation of Benefits and initiate a public and private stakeholder effort to develop additional recommendations and guidance to balance the need for consumer protections with the need for confidentiality, especially when it comes to sensitive health services. (Let PP have more access to your children, without your knowledge.)
- The Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator must make it clear that PEPFAR funds can be used to pay for contraceptive commodities to ensure individuals living with and at risk for HIV have access to a full range of voluntary contraception options and to make the promise of integrated HIV and family planning services a reality for countless more adolescent girls and young women. (At the same time, PP is telling those with AIDS they don’t have to tell their sexual partners that they have the disease.)
- The State Department must champion sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in UN meetings and multilateral forums, including by adopting and advancing comprehensive definitions of SRHR and comprehensive sex education, promoting the inclusion of diverse civil society experts in multilateral forums and on official U.S. delegations, ensuring participants from around the world are granted visas to engage in convenings at UN headquarters, the Organization of American States, World Bank and other multilateral institutions located in the U.S., and prioritizing participating and serving on the Executive Board of UN Specialized Agencies related to sexual and reproductive health and rights, including WHO, and encouraging the expansion of their programs and policies globally. (PP fights to make abortion as an element of “reproductive rights and force countries to legalize abortion.)
- The president must rescind, and undo actions taken pursuant to Executive Order 13798 Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty, which set the stage for expanding the use of religion to discriminate against people seeking reproductive health care, including the rules that allow employers to deny birth control coverage to their employees, and the creation of the HHS Conscience and Religious Freedom Division which emboldens discrimination and refusals of care. (There is no religious liberty; the state controls everything.)
- The Department of Justice must not investigate, arrest, or prosecute individuals under the federal criminal code for any act or omission with respect to their own pregnancy, and must end its policies and practices that place people at risk of criminal charges for any act or omission with respect to their own pregnancy. Such acts or omissions include but are not limited to self-managing or attempting to self-manage an abortion; failing to seek medical help when they miscarry, have a stillbirth, or experience any pregnancy loss, no matter its cause; using substances, whether prescribed, over-the-counter, or criminalized, during pregnancy. (Any way you want to kill your baby should be fine.)
Having spent over $45 million on the 2020 elections, Planned Parenthood believes it owns the Biden administration and is insisting that it get paid back. During the Obama administration, there were persistent rumors that Planned Parenthood would be elevated from a mere $1.6 billion “non-profit” organization to a cabinet-level government program. Now that Planned Parenthood has gained such great influence over the assumed president-elect, these rumors are beginning to be heard once again.
Whatever happens with that, it is absolutely clear that Planned Parenthood wants to change America from “one nation, under God” to a political entity that is driven by the secular Humanist beliefs of Planned Parenthood and the American Humanist Association.
Jim Sedlak is executive director of American Life League, founder of STOPP International, and host of a weekly talk show on the Radio Maria Network. He has been successfully fighting Planned Parenthood since 1985.