President Donald Trump is expected to announce a new rule on Friday pulling federal funding from health organizations that so much as mention abortion as a family planning method, according to multiple reports.
Filed Thursday and announced Friday by the Department of Health and Human Services, the proposal prevents federal funding for “any facility or program that promotes abortion or refers patients to a caregiver that will provide one,” according to the New York Times. The move takes aim at Planned Parenthood and is the latest Trump administration effort to curb women’s access to abortion.
Per the Cut:
While laws about federal family planning already prohibit direct funding of organizations that offer abortion, this plan would take it one step further by barring abortions in any clinic where federally-funded reproductive-health services are offered. So, under this plan, if organizations didn’t want to lose this funding, they would have to stop discussing or performing abortions—an option that few would likely choose.
As the Times noted, this policy would reflect rules implemented by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 that required “physical separation” between abortion services and other family-planning activities. Conservative lawmakers, including Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, have been pushing the new plan.
Grateful that @realDonaldTrump keeps another promise to stop taxpayer funded slaughter of babies at Planned Parenthood. Abortion is NOT health care-it ends a life and exploits mother's vulnerability. #DefundPlannedParenthood https://t.co/Vaoyw5DiFO
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) May 18, 2018
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said it should “enrage” Americans.
Dr. Eugene Gu, a surgeon and healthcare columnist, pointed out the irony of Trump’s plan that will “defund HPV and HIV screening and prevention—the very things he can’t even tell apart.”
Trump’s plan to defund Planned Parenthood will defund HPV and HIV screening and prevention—the very things he can’t even tell apart. This is a shameful attack on women but a stunning victory for breast cancer, cervical cancer, syphilis, chlamydia, gonorrhea, and genital warts.
— Eugene Gu, MD (@eugenegu) May 18, 2018
Last year, the Trump administration reversed an Obama-era rule preventing states from withholding Title X family planning grants from healthcare providers that offer abortion.
H/T New York Times