The Trump administration has taken another critically important step in strengthening the moral health of our nation, and hence our future.
The Department of Health and Human Services has issued the Protect Life Rule, stopping the flow of Title X federal funds to family planning clinics that perform abortions or do abortion referrals.
It also requires that clinics receiving Title X funds be "physically and financially" separate from any entity providing abortions.
This puts a stop to organizations like Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, from claiming that, although they perform abortions, Title X funds they receive are used for other purposes.
Estimates are that this rule will reduce federal funding flowing to Planned Parenthood by some $60 million.
The Title X program was enacted in 1970, as part of the Public Health Service Act, to provide family planning assistance, primarily to low-income families.
In 2018, $286,479,000 was appropriated to this program.
Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., chairman of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, notes that Title X funds were "never" meant to fund abortions services. Given that the program was enacted three years before abortion was legalized nationwide as result of Roe v. Wade, his case is convincing.
A Planned Parenthood spokesperson attacked this rule-making, saying that "the Trump-Pence administration has aggressively targeted the ... rights and bodily autonomy of people of color."
There was a time in our nation's history when the rights and bodily autonomy of people of color were aggressively violated.
But as vile a sin slavery was, those that committed it did so by choice. Americans who wanted no part of it weren't forced to participate as slave owners.
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This isn't the case when taxpayer funds are channeled by the federal government to abortion providers. According to the most recent Gallup polling, 75 percent of those who attend church weekly and 56 percent of those that attend church monthly are "pro-life."
Their reverence for the sanctity of life flows directly from their faith.
It is inconceivable that an American citizen who believes and understands that abortion is the destruction of human life should be forced to fund, with their tax dollars, those who perform it.
Although it is currently legal for women to have abortions for whatever reason they want, it is repugnant to think that as a nation we would provide further moral authority for abortion by allowing federal funds to support it.
The loss of reverence for the sanctity of life, and the culture of meaninglessness that it fosters, comes at a great price for our nation's soul.
It's evident in a new survey of American teens, ages 13-17, by Pew Research.
Seventy percent of these young Americans say anxiety and depression is a "major" problem among their peers. Fifty-one percent say drug addiction is a "major" problem.
Although 95 percent say "having a career or job that they enjoy" is "extremely" or "very" important, only 47 percent say getting married is extremely or very important, and only 39 percent say having children is extremely or very important.
According to research of John D. Mueller of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, "legal abortion is the main cause of family breakdown, including specifically in the rise of rates of divorce, illegitimacy, and crime."
Thus, this new rule-making strikes at the heart of what is wreaking havoc in urban America. It is sadly ironic that those on the left, who favor abortion and hence the social destruction it cultivates, label the Trump administration racist.
According to Gallup, sentiment is rising against abortion. When Gallup first surveyed the issue in 1995, 56 percent were "pro-choice" and 33 percent "pro-life." Today, it's even at 48 percent for both.
The fight against legal abortion on demand will continue. But for sure, taxpayer funds should not be going to abortion providers, particularly not to corporate giants like Planned Parenthood.
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