{"id":181142,"date":"2018-04-05T11:30:00","date_gmt":"2018-04-05T15:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=181142"},"modified":"2018-04-04T22:42:46","modified_gmt":"2018-04-05T02:42:46","slug":"planned-parenthood-lose-title-x-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/planned-parenthood-lose-title-x-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Planned Parenthood may lose some Title X funding, and that’s good for women"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Pro-lifers were gravely disappointed by Congress’s most recent failure to defund the nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood. Legislators passed the $1.3 trillion spending bill, and President Trump, despite threats to veto, signed the bill into law<\/a> on March 23, 2018. Live Action News reported at the time, “Despite promises from GOP leaders, including Trump, regarding their intentions to defund Planned Parenthood, this provision was not included in the bill in the face of a potential government shutdown.”<\/p>\n

But all may not be as rosy as it looks for Planned Parenthood and its customary $500 million forced annual ‘gift’ from taxpayers.\u00a0The Department of Health and Human Services appears to be looking beyond Planned Parenthood as a provider for family planning services — and Planned Parenthood is apparently not happy.<\/p>\n

On March 30th, the Washington Examiner reported that “More of the $260 million dollars in Title X funding for low-income contraception might go to other women\u2019s health providers, including comprehensive women\u2019s health clinics that practice modern fertility awareness-based methods.” Historically, the Examiner says, Planned Parenthood has been the recipient of about 25 percent of federal Title X family planning funds. Because this is now being threatened and Planned Parenthood is essentially having to compete with other, more comprehensive facilities, the abortion corporation has launched a smear campaign against the HHS department’s shift in focus.<\/p>\n

READ: This regulation could remove Title X funding from Planned Parenthood<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Planned Parenthood issued a press release<\/a>\u00a0falsely claiming that HHS is attempting to keep women from going to providers which offer contraceptives. The reality is that HHS has actually expanded<\/em> options for women, allowing those Title X funds to potentially go to other qualified providers who offer natural, non-hormonal alternatives for planning and spacing pregnancies.<\/p>\n

Planned Parenthood’s press release links to an article from\u00a0Politico<\/a>, which, like a dutiful friend to the abortion industry, notes (with great alarm) that Trump-appointed “abstinence advocate,” Valerie Huber, is now going to decide where Title X money goes. The problem is, Politico’s article is full of inaccuracies. The Washington Examiner reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The actual announcement<\/u><\/a> says that HHS is \u201csolicit[ing] applications from public and private nonprofit entities, including comprehensive primary care providers … and women\u2019s health centers \u2026 especially those proposing innovative strategies to increase the number of clients served or quality of services.\u201d It goes on to say that it seeks broad competition and intends to \u201cimprove overall service provision\u201d and \u201cexpand the breadth of service.\u201d Programs that apply should prioritize low income families. Of course, the announcement does state that programs should offer a broad range of services, \u201cincluding natural family planning methods \u2013 also called fertility awareness.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, it is clear that Planned Parenthood and centers like it won\u2019t be excluded from funding, but rather, <\/i>programs specializing in fertility awareness based methods could compete for Title X funding, thanks to the current administration\u2019s efforts to meet a neglected portion of the statute’s regulation which requires the inclusion of FABMs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Planned Parenthood doesn’t like this at all. After all, CEO Cecile Richards has publicly slammed fertility awareness methods before (albeit inaccurately). Richards is a smart woman, however; is it really likely that she painted fertility awareness methods inaccurately by accident?\u00a0As reported<\/a> by Katie Yoder, Richards wrongly equated fertility awareness methods to the “rhythm method” back in December of 2017:<\/p>\n