Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, is calling on Christians across the country to take a moment to comment on the Obama Administration’s plan to prevent states from defunding Planned Parenthood.
He sent out an email Thursday evening, inviting evangelicals to respond:
The Obama administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued a new proposed regulation blocking states from defunding Planned Parenthood from federal Title X family planning funds. The HHS regulation would effectively create a backdoor handout for the abortion industry.
Title X is a federal grant program that provides funds for family planning services. Many states have passed laws to exclude such funds from going to abortion providers like Planned Parenthood. While many Title X grants go to private entities, many states are the main grant recipient of these funds. Those states realize that money is fungible. When Planned Parenthood or other abortion clinics receive Title X grant funding, it frees resources for them to spend more on abortion. The Title X law itself prevents funds from being used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning, but nowhere does the law say that grant recipients must include abortion providers. HHS’ new rule is an executive overreach that is simply without basis in the law.
States should be free to prioritize awarding Title X funding to health care providers they find most effective at offering comprehensive healthcare services, including family planning services, without being forced to comply with a new federal mandate to fill the coffers of abortion clinics like Planned Parenthood. Some states, in particular, have chosen to prioritize these family planning funds to health clinics and community health centers that also seamlessly offer a full range of healthcare services including family planning, but which also do not participate in abortion.
Big abortion groups like Planned Parenthood have issued alerts so pro-abortion individuals have submitted comments to HHS. We need pro-life people like you to provide comments urging HHS to reject this extra legal regulation.
Today—Friday, Oct. 7—is the final day to comment. Click here to file your comments electronically into the official record.
