The nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, has announced that it will withdraw from the Title X federal family planning program next Monday unless a court intervenes.
Lawyers representing the organization have pleaded with the U.S. Court of Appeals for a stay of a rule passed by the Department of Health and Human Services which banned all organizations that receive money via the federal funding program from performing abortions or referring patients for the procedure.
Title X provides birth control and contraceptives to those of low-income and has been praised by pro-lifers for not allowing federal money to be used in the termination of young lives.
“All Planned Parenthood direct grantees will be forced to withdraw from the Title X program by the close of business on Monday, Aug. 19, 2019,” Planned Parenthood’s letter reads. “Moreover, Planned Parenthood subgrantees are being similarly forced to withdraw from the program as their grantees face the same compliance deadline.”
The abortion business, which carries out over 300,000 terminations a year, insisted that the Title X restrictions on abortion amount to a “gag rule.”
Others have pointed out that Planned Parenthood’s decision is a clear-cut sign that they are more devoted to abortions than they are to a more rounded form of female healthcare.
“If abortion were indeed such a small and insignificant part of Planned Parenthood’s grand mission, as we are assured, would it be such a sacrifice to financially separate it from the rest of the business?” asked Alexandra Desanctis at the National Review. “If women’s health-care needs were so dire, and the Title X program were so essential to the group’s success, surely it would be a price worth paying.”
Last month, Planned Parenthood’s own president was forced out after attempting to reorient the organization to a more health-focused mission that wasn’t solely fixated on abortion.
In a statement, the acting Planned Parenthood President, Alexis McGill Johnson, insisted that her company would “refuse to let the Trump administration bully us into withholding abortion information from our patients.”
“The gag rule is unethical and dangerous, and we will not subject our patients to it,” she added.
Pro-life leaders, however, highlighted the fact that Planned Parenthood was not being singled out or attacked — but that it was simply protecting its central mission, which is to be the leading abortion provider in the nation.
“Congress was clear. The law is clear,” Catherine Gleen Foster, the president of pro-life organization “Americans United for Life” told the Christian Post. “Title X was never meant to fund abortions.”
Photo courtesy: Getty Images/Andrew Burton/Staff
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