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A new policy by the Trump administration prohibiting federally funded healthcare providers from referring patients to or informing them about abortion providers has led Planned Parenthood to withdraw from the federally-funded program for family planning for low-income women.
Under the program, called Title X, Planned Parenthood is granted roughly $60 million a year with which it serves 40 percent of all low income people in the U.S. who receive birth control, pregnancy tests, and screenings for sexually transmitted diseases and cervical cancer. This averages at approximately 1.5 million people annually.
According to the new rule, healthcare providers funded by Title X will be permitted to discuss abortion with their patients, but will be blocked from recommending it as a course of action or supply patients with referrals to abortion clinics or any specific information about where to obtain them.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced that while the new policy will prohibit Title X-funded healthcare providers from promoting abortion as a family planning option, it nonetheless enables them to issue referrals for abortion clinics in cases of a medical emergency.
The department further stated that pregnant women will receive “a list of comprehensive healthcare providers (including prenatal care providers), including some (but not the majority) who perform abortion as part of a comprehensive health care practice. However, this list cannot serve as a referral for, nor identify those who provide abortion – and Title X providers cannot indicate those on the list who provide abortion.”
In response, Planned Parenthood stated that the organisation would rather reject federal funding than comply with what it perceives (and rightfully so) to be a ‘gag rule’. In an interview for The New York Times, Alexis McGill, acting president of Planned Parenthood, stated that “When you have an unethical rule that will limit what providers can tell our patients, it becomes really important that we do not agree to be in the program.”
While Planned Parenthood will continue to receive funding from Medicaid (a healthcare program for low-income people funded by the state and federal governments), its withdrawal from the Title X program will nonetheless limit its operations. According to Planned Parenthood, patients can be expected to wait for longer periods of time for appointments, as well as experience extensive delays in access to care services or lose them altogether. This is particularly true in states where Planned Parenthood is the sole organisation receiving Title X funds.
Planned Parenthood was joined by more than 20 states in an attempt to challenge the rule in court. Yet a federal appeals court rejected their request to stay within the policy until legal proceedings are resolved.
The revision of the Title X program is yet another strike in the battle waged by the Trump administration and conservative states against women. Along with countless heartbeat bills and abortion restrictions springing across the country, the new Title X rule makes the agenda of the conservative wing crystal clear: to chip away at and ultimately overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalising abortion across the U.S. and prevent women from maintaining agency over their bodies and lives.
Restricting access to abortion services isn’t going to prevent women from seeking out the procedure. All it means is that they will be forced to resort to risky and life-threatening methods of terminating unwanted pregnancies. And, as usual, it is the most vulnerable of populations who will bear the brunt of these draconian policies.
Image: GettyImages
