Washington D.C., May 29, 2018 / 03:49 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A federal government proposal to remove Title X funding from programs and facilities that perform abortions has drawn considerable media attention, raising questions of whether such a move would impact women’s access to health care.
On May 18, President Donald Trump formally announced that his administration is proposing a new rule that would prevent Title X family planning funds from going to clinics that perform or promote abortions.
The move was lauded by pro-life advocates, while pro-abortion groups called it an attack on women that would be devastating to the availability of women’s healthcare.
Planned Parenthood, the largest performer of abortions in the U.S., would be eligible for continued Title X funding if it stopped doing abortions, or if separated – both physically and financially – its abortion facilities from the rest of its operations.
Outgoing Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards rejected the idea of the organization cutting ties with abortion during a meeting with White House personnel last year.
Planned Parenthood blasted the new proposal as “an attempt to take away women’s basic rights” and a move “would block patients from healthcare.”
But is this really the case?
Last year, according to its annual report, Planned Parenthood received over $543 million in taxpayer dollars. About $60 million of that funding comes from Title X. The remainder is from other government grants, including Medicaid payments for services.
The 13,000 federally qualified health centers outnumber Planned Parenthood’s 650 facilities by a ratio of 20 to 1.
However, government funding makes up only 37 percent of Planned Parenthood’s revenue. The organization also fundraises, and has claimed that the threat of defunding has increased its contributions from private donors. Planned Parenthood reported $98.5 million in excess revenue last year.
Over the last decade, Planned Parenthood’s government funding increased significantly: in 2006, the organization received $336.7 million in government money. While its public funding increased, however, the organization saw fewer patients and provided fewer overall services during that time frame. Prenatal care and cancer screenings offered from 2006-2016 decreased, while the number of abortions increased by more than 10 percent.
For this reason, and because many alternatives to Planned Parenthood exist for women’s health care, it is unlikely that women would be negatively affected the new proposal, said Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood director who now works as a pro-life advocate.
“There over 13,000 federally qualified Health Centers that serve entire families and offer many more services than Planned Parenthood offers, not including abortion,” Johnson told CNA.
“Planned Parenthood is trying to scare women with their rhetoric, when in reality, women will have more options with greater affordability, instead of resorting to the abortion industry, where money is put above all other goals.”
The 13,000 federally qualified health centers outnumber Planned Parenthood’s 650 facilities by a ratio of 20 to 1. They do not perform abortions, but provide other medical care, and could be eligible for an increase in funding under the new Trump administration rule.
Given that these facilities provide more types of medical care than Planned Parenthood facilities, and are far more widespread throughout the nation, the changes to Title X are a smart move for women, Johnson said.
“Our government is wisely choosing to remove tax dollars from the nation’s largest abortion provider and redirect them to actual healthcare providers who seek to serve the same demographic of Americans,” she told CNA.
In recent years, Planned Parenthood has been mired in controversy.
While federal law prohibits federal funding from being used directly for abortions, a report from the Charlotte Lozier Institute and Alliance Defending Freedom suggested that, according to federal and state audits, taxpayer dollars were funding abortion-related expenses in several states.
Furthermore, a 2015 report from Alliance Defending Freedom said that Planned Parenthood clinics in several states had failed to report suspected cases of sexual abuse of minors, as they are required by law to do.
Undercover video reporting in recent years has also appeared to show Planned Parenthood officials discussing the transfer of aborted fetal tissue for money, a practice that violates federal law.
The organization has also drawn criticism for repeatedly claiming to offer mammograms, a statement that fact-checkers have repeatedly rejected.
Planned Parenthood claims that abortions account for only three percent of the total services they provide, although fact-checkers – at the Washington Post among others – have taken issue with that claim, pointing out that Planned Parenthood counts each small procedure like a pregnancy test or a pap smear as a service provided, but abortion accounts for much greater cost and revenue for the organization.
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Honor to this President for standing up for Palestinian rights and for warning our nation against the inordinate influence of Israel.
May God grant salvation to President Jimmy Carter.
Yes, let’s pray for his soul. But let’s not forget that Carter—in addition to being pro-abortion, pro-“gay marriage”, and slanderous towards pro-lifers—praised Castro and Cuba, China, Tito (“a man who believes in human rights”), Kim Il Sung, Yasser Arafat, and the PLO, Mengistu, Cédras, Assad, and Hamas. Jimmy was most inept (whereas Joe is mostly corrupt), but he was also a sanctimonious embarrassment far more often than his hagiographers (that is, the legacy media) will ever admit. For more, see my July 2009 post at Insight Scoop.
Upon Carter’s election, the astute and long-time Singapore President Lee Qwan Yew wrote (of world leaders) in his own autobiography, “we knew we would just have to put up with him for four years.”
And, on the domestic scene, we recall that it was President Carter who gave us the cabinet-level position U.S. Department of Education, surely as a reward to the teachers’ unions that helped him get elected (formed on May 4, 1980, as a result of the Department of Education Organization Act–Public Law 96-88–of October 1979; President Jimmy Carter signed the bill into law.) The gift that keeps on giving.
Educationally speaking, Shakespeare gives us a clue: “The fault is not in our ‘stars,’ but in ourselves” (“Julius Caesar”). That is, the fault is not in those who are elected but in those who elect them. The corporate Peter Principle transferred to the gummint.
Yes, the establishment of the Department of Education was foolish. Yet, who kept it going, despite, as I recall, promises to the contrary? Oh, yeah, his successor, that “great conservative” Ronald Reagan.
Bravo! Sick to death of the hagiographies popping up everywhere.
Not that Pres. Carter endorsed this policy, but something to keep in mind from the late, great Huey Long:
“I don’t know much about Hitler. Except that last thing, about the Jews. There has never been a country that put its heel down on the Jews that ever lived afterwards.”
— Huey Long
For all his faults, Huey had some wise insights. May he & Jimmy Carter rest in peace.
Palestine must earn nationhood. Terrorism must never be rewarded. For over three quarters of a century, the only thing that Palestinians have excelled in is their ability to inflict incalculable suffering on a global scale, not only on others, but also on themselves.
It will only be by a direct intervention from God Himself that the hearts and minds of radical Islam will be converted.
It is for this we must pray.
Aside from rationalizing numerous acts of Islamic terrorism, possibly to downplay and make his years of cowardice not seem so bad while president, the post-president, “great humanitarian,” Carter met with leaders of the terrorist group Hamas. He embraced Nasser al-Shaer, the man who ran the Palestinian education system, brainwashing children into believing Jews are the descendants of pigs and dogs. He laid a wreath at the grave of Yasser Arafat, the most notorious terrorist thug of the 20th century.
Oh I forgot. Francis seems to indicate the Islamic world can’t do much that is morally wrong. He once reminded us that beheading children was the equivalent of domestic abuse, which he assumed was done by Catholic men since he read it in an Italian newspaper.
Freemasons defend the reputation of fellow members. Not suggesting that is what Bergoglio is doing at all, what so ever.
Thanks for your counter-witness, Carl. I confess my (naive) views of Carter have hitherto been based on the so-called mainstream media.
If Carter was mainly inept, what does that make Francis with his (supposed) assessment of him?
I volunteered in Jimmy Carter’s campaign & he was the first president I ever voted for . (And the last Democrat.) He really was a decent & faithful man in many ways but a very incompetent president.
In the beginning we believed he was a solid Christian believer but over time he veered off in some strange directions. God rest his soul.
Good question. I think there are a few factors involved. First, Pope Francis had to say something nice; it would be uncharitable to do otherwise. Secondly, Francis (I’m guessing) knows very little about Carter’s faith, life, policies, etc. Some of that is to be expected, as the Pope isn’t supposed to be an expert on all previous and current world leaders. But, thirdly, his remarks (praising “the deep faith” of Carter) just follow the standard, mainstream line, which is par for this pope and his inner circle. Fourth, I think that Francis is so keen on politics and political gestures that he probably believes Carter was a good president of deep faith. After all, that’s what the media legacy is trying to feed us here, even though the record says otherwise. Fifth, I think both men, in real ways, are 1970s liberals who have “evolved” on certain stances. Carter (as noted already) ended up embracing a hazy form of liberal Protestantism—or, better, of Protestantized liberalism—and jettisoned core moral beliefs, which in turn meant dismissing any sort of traditional, biblical Christian anthropology.
The bottom line, for me, is that Carter was mostly a disaster as POTUS and while he did some good things afterwards, he was a pro-tyrannical, pro-abortion, pro-“gay marriage”, post-1970s liberal whose Christianity was thin at best.
Carter’s was a failed presidency and American voters rejected him and his policies. I find it amusing and laughable how the leftists (inclusing Bergoglio) are tripping over themselves to canonize this man. Some of us are not fooled by the posturing. The guy was book smart but had the leadership skills of an idiot.
Carter was not a good President. I voted against him twice. He let the Iranian Shiite fanatics push him around, that said, he did become a decent ex President with the Habitat for Humanity business. I recall seeing a picture of him years ago, after he left the White House, wearing a tool belt and hammering nails at a construction site. I thought that was nice that he found some task that he can accomplish.
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Agreed on his presidency. It was, overall, a train wreck. Carter was a nice guy, and that meant that he did some nice and good things. But “nice” isn’t the same as principled or strong, and Carter (in my estimation) was neither of those.
Jimmy Carter’s single greatest accomplishment was in giving the United States of America eight years of Reagan.
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I took your recommendation, Carl, and read your 2009 article. I believe I am now sufficiently inocculated against the current media and papal hagiography.
I do think Habitat for Humanity does good work.
Respectful farewell to Jimmy Carter. RIP.