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- Planned Parenthood has decided to reject Title X funding rather than complying with a new Trump administration abortion rule. [Reuters / Brendan O’Brien]
- Earlier this year, the Trump administration released a new rule that would bar organizations receiving Title X funding — the only federal funding for family planning — from providing abortion referrals. Planned Parenthood, which serves about 40 percent of Title X recipients, immediately pushed back and called it a “gag rule.” [BuzzFeed News / Dan Vergano]
- Planned Parenthood was left with two choices: no longer referring abortions or rejecting about $60 million in federal funding. The organization chose the latter. [Politico / Alice Miranda Ollstein]
- This doesn’t mean that the organization will lose all of its federal funding, as it receives about $500 million from Medicaid a year (according to 2017-2018 records). But some services will undoubtedly have to be cut, experts say. [NYT / Pam Belluck]
- The lack of funding could affect about 1.5 million people, many who receives services other than abortions such as birth control and STD testing. Some patients will experience delays in treatment, while some will lose all access, according to Planned Parenthood. [The Daily Beast / Emily Shugerman]
- Planned Parenthood and other organizations don’t just see this as an attack on abortions. They said the new rule is also an attack on reproductive health care because it is targeting contraception as well, especially because anti-abortion group Obria –– which is against hormonal contraception –– received a $1.7 million grant. [Vox / Anna North]
- There is still a small chance that the rule could be overturned, as it is currently being weighed in a federal appeals court. For now, however, the administration is free to enforce it. [AP / David Crary and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar]
Verbatim
“We will not be bullied into withholding abortion information from our patients. Our patients deserve to make their own health care decisions, not to be forced to have Donald Trump or Mike Pence make those decisions for them.” [Alexis McGill Johnson, Planned Parenthood’s acting president and CEO, on the organization’s decision to withdraw from Title X funding]
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