{"id":205031,"date":"2019-06-20T13:32:04","date_gmt":"2019-06-20T18:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=205031"},"modified":"2019-06-21T12:35:25","modified_gmt":"2019-06-21T17:35:25","slug":"blow-planned-parenthood-court-trump-defund-abortion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/blow-planned-parenthood-court-trump-defund-abortion\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Major blow to Planned Parenthood’: Appeals court lets Trump admin defund abortion providers as lawsuits continue"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In what Politico refers to<\/a> as “a major blow to Planned Parenthood,” the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has “granted the Trump\u00a0administration’s request to lift national injunctions<\/a> ordered by lower federal courts in Oregon and Washington state, as well as a statewide injunction in California” with regard to Title X “family planning” funding, while lawsuits filed<\/a> by at least 20 states continue to work their way through the courts.<\/p>\n

According to a previous report<\/a> from Live Action News, the so-called “gag rule,” as the abortion industry has labeled it, would prevent “Title X funding recipients from referring patients for abortions,” and require “that abortion providers physically and financially separate their abortion facilities from their facilities providing birth control services \u2014 120 days to comply financially, and one year to comply physically.” Planned Parenthood stands to lose $60 million in annual funding if the rule is ultimately upheld. Planned Parenthood’s family planning\/birth control services have plummeted 33% over ten years,<\/a>\u00a0and its total cancer screenings have dropped by an incredible 68%<\/em> over ten years. Its abortions, however, continue to increase by the thousands each year even though they somehow magically remain<\/a> at just 3% of Planned Parenthood’s services.<\/p>\n

Politico reports that the three appeals court judges, “all appointed by previous Republican presidents,” believe the Trump administration “will likely prevail in the legal battle over the Title X family planning program since the Supreme Court held up similar Reagan-era rules almost 30 years ago, though they were reversed by the Clinton administration before taking effect.”<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0How Planned Parenthood uses taxpayer dollars and Title X for abortion<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

“Barring further court orders,” writes Politico, “the Trump administration can enforce a rule finalized this spring that strips federal Title X funding from any clinic that provides abortions or abortion referrals.”<\/p>\n

The court wrote in a unanimous opinion, “Absent a stay, HHS will be forced to allow taxpayer dollars to be spent in a manner that it has concluded violates the law, as well as the Government\u2019s important policy interest in ensuring that taxpayer dollars do not go to fund or subsidize abortions.”\u00a0While opponents of the rule claim that the Department of Health and Human Services can point to no specific example of where any commingling of funds has occurred, the fact that Planned Parenthood’s facilities and physicians providing both family planning (birth control) and abortion services are housed in the same buildings means that taxpayer funds received by Planned Parenthood go to support the business of Planned Parenthood, which includes more than 320,000 abortions annually. This is a concept known as fungibility<\/a>.<\/p>\n