The Trump administration has informed Planned Parenthood it will have to quit performing abortions in order to keep its federal taxpayer funding.
Maggie Haberman at the New York Times reports the White House has made an “informal pitch” to Planned Parenthood, offering continued federal funding to the nation’s largest abortion business if it agrees to stop performing abortions.
“As I said throughout the campaign, I am pro-life and I am deeply committed to investing in women’s health and plan to significantly increase federal funding in support of nonabortion services such as cancer screenings,” Trump reportedly said in a statement to the Times. “Polling shows the majority of Americans oppose public funding for abortion, even those who identify as pro-choice. There is an opportunity for organizations to continue the important work they do in support of women’s health, while not providing abortion services.”
However, Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), rejected Trump’s proposal.
“Let’s be clear, federal funds already do not pay for abortions,” she said. “Offering money to Planned Parenthood to abandon our patients and our values is not a deal that we will ever accept. Providing critical health care services for millions of American women is nonnegotiable.”
During his presidential campaign, Trump outlined four policy commitments in a letter to pro-life leaders:
- Nominating pro-life justices to the U.S. Supreme Court
- Signing into law the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would end painful late-term abortions nationwide
- Defunding Planned Parenthood as long as they continue to perform abortions and reallocating their funding to community health centers that provide comprehensive health care for women
- Making the Hyde Amendment permanent law to protect taxpayers from having to pay for abortions
The provision to end Planned Parenthood’s federal funding would redirect it to other federally qualified healthcare centers (FQHCs) that provide more comprehensive health services, but do not perform abortions.
Nationally, there are 13,000 FQHCs – a figure that outnumbers Planned Parenthood facilities by 20 to 1.
A recent Marist poll found that 61 percent of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortion, including 40 percent of those who say they are “pro-choice,” and 41 percent of Democrats.
Planned Parenthood performs more than 300,000 abortions per year and receives over a half billion dollars in federal taxpayer funding annually. The organization has been referred for possible criminal prosecution by congressional committees following allegations it sells the harvested body parts of aborted babies for a profit.
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