Last week, the Trump Administration
took decisive action on the president’s pledge to disentangle taxpayers from
the abortion industry – delivering a policy win that promotes better health
care alternatives for women … and may save countless lives.
The Protect Life Rule (PLR) stops
taxpayer funding of abortion through the Title X family planning program. Most Americans agree that abortion is not
family planning and oppose taxpayer-funded abortion. The PLR does not cut a single dollar from family
planning; it instead directs tax dollars to Title X centers that do not promote
or perform abortions … such as the growing number of community and rural health
centers. There are already more than 3,000
Title X service sites nationwide – including state and county health
departments, community health centers, and nonprofit clinics – where women and
families are already accessing comprehensive preventative and primary care … not
abortion.
For too long, abortion businesses –
chief among them Planned Parenthood (PP) – have exploited Title X as though it
were their own private bank account. Since
the Clinton era, all Title X grantees have been required to refer for abortion,
and service sites have been allowed to carry out abortions on the same premises
and keep their taxpayer funding.
PP has been receiving $50-$60-million in
Title X funds annually and more than half of its service sites provide abortion
at the same address. This is contrary to
both the spirit and the letter of the Title X statute, which specifically
states that funds should not go to programs that treat abortion as a method of
family planning.
The PLR puts a stop to it, reinstating
the policy of President Reagan and restoring the integrity of the Title X
program. Pro-life groups have been
working for this change for months. More
than 85 national and state pro-life groups sent a letter earlier this month to
Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar asking him to
revise Title X rules. 41-senators and
153-representatives also sent letters making the same request.
Abortion advocates will of course be
livid about the PLR. They give an
extremely misleading impression of how Title X works when they claim millions
of Americans will lose access to basic health care. Rather than being earmarked for specific
services, Title X is a slush fund for general operations. Title X dollars pay for rent, utilities,
staff salaries and computers, even advertising to recruit clients.
As anybody who has the slightest
business experience knows, money is fungible; if it helps keep the lights on
and the doors open, it contributes to the overall success of the company. When that company is PP, that means taxpayers
are helping prop up the nation’s largest abortion business.
PP carries out more than 320,000
abortions every year and even faces federal investigation for its role in the
harvest and sale of aborted children’s body parts for profit. Their total services and patients have been
in decline for years, but the number of abortions has remained stable and their
revenue has hit a record high.
While policies that prevent taxpayer
funding of abortion have clearly been shown to reduce abortions, the consequences
of bankrolling the abortion industry are dire. Peer-reviewed research indicates PP has
inflated the U.S. abortion rate – so much that more than 3-million avoidable
abortions can be attributed to PP’s intervention in the abortion market.
If they truly view women’s health care
as paramount, and PP and other abortion centers want to continue providing
Title X services, the logical thing would be to simply comply with the rules. If they refuse to do that, they can fund their
activities without conscripting taxpayers. The PLR offers that choice. Sure, PP might have to dip into the $98.5-million
in excess revenue they reported for fiscal 2016-2017. They might have to cut into the $75-million
spent on “movement building.” They might
even have to hit up their ultra-wealthy donors who are capable of giving them
$9-million at a time. There’s no
evidence they require taxpayer funding to survive or break even, and plenty of
evidence that they don’t deserve it at all.
President Trump’s PLR is a huge step
in the right direction. It shows that he
has heard the frustration of pro-life voters over continued funding of the
abortion industry. A victory like this
is just the shot in the arm the pro-life grassroots needed to head enthusiastically
into the critical mid-term elections.
Many thanks to President Trump for
doing what it takes to fulfill this core promise and get taxpayers out of the abortion
business.
Rev.
Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain
(Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor,
Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
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