The Department of Health and Human Services will introduce new regulations Friday requiring health clinics providing abortion to choose between keeping abortion services or losing taxpayer funding through grants.
“American taxpayers want out of the abortion business,” a senior administration official said during a phone call Friday morning. "Abortion is not family planning.”
Officials say the "Protect Life Rule" is not necessarily a defunding of Planned Parenthood, unless they choose to continue providing abortion services while accepting taxpayer funding. The abortion giant currently received $500 million in taxpayer money.
FACT: Title X provides 4% of PP's income.
— Susan B Anthony List (@SBAList) May 18, 2018
PP claims 1.6 M of their 2.4 M clients are served with 4% of their income?
The numbers don't wash.
The #ProtectLife Rule sends Title X family planning tax dollars to abortion-free zones. Not a dime less.#NoGagRule #ProLife https://t.co/ivXAm00xcj
The goal is to disentangle family planning services from abortion and officials argue new regulations are a "prohibition of abortion as a method of family planning” and "would better protect victims of sexual assault, incest and rape.”
The proposal will not prohibit counseling for abortion, but does bar referrals for abortion services.
The new regulations are similar to a framework implemented during the Reagan era, which was upheld by the Supreme Court.
The move comes nearly a year after President Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy, which bars taxpayer funding from going to abortions through foreign aid.