When it comes to cutting taxpayer funding and gutting big government, for millions of pro-life Americans there is nothing more important to cut than funding to Planned Parenthood.
The majority of Americans generally oppose abortions and they are tired of hundreds of millions of their tax dollars going to the nation’s biggest abortion business every year.
Thankfully, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy – tapped by President Donald trump to head the new Department of Government Efficiency operation – have proposed cutting the $300 million the Planned Parenthood abortion business gets in federal taxpayer dollars. Giving that money back to the people or directing it to legitimate health care efforts that support mothers and babies would be a massive pro-life victory.
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Lila Rose, the head of the pro-life group Live Action, said such a move would be “Amazing” and highlighted their call for defunding.
Under Joe Biden, Planned Parenthood received a record $750 million of taxpayer funding while performing a record 392,000 abortions just last year. The so-called nonprofit now gets roughly one-third of its total income from the federal government.
During the campaign, Vice-presidential candidate JD Vance said that, if he’s elected, Donald Trump will fight to defund the Planned Parenthood abortion business.
During his term as president, Trump took multiple steps to revoke taxpayer funding for the largest abortion company in America. Some were successful but the abortion giant fought others in court and prevented his executive orders from being implemented to revoke funding.
“We don’t think that taxpayers should fund late-term abortions,” Vance told RealClearPolitics. “That has been a consistent view of the Trump campaign the first time around, it will remain a consistent view.”
Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion chain, has been mired in scandal after scandal, from allegations that it sold aborted baby body parts and covered up sex trafficking to accusations of “systemic racism” and pregnancy discrimination by its own employees.
Additionally, we can expect Trump to both cut funding for Planned Parenthood International—Planned Parenthood’s arm in foreign countries—as he did in his first term, and reinstate the Mexico City Policy, one of his first actions as president in 2017, to prevent U.S. taxpayer dollars from funding overseas abortions.
During his first term, here are seven ways Trump and his administration tried to defund Planned Parenthood:
#1 Defunding International Planned Parenthood
Trump signed the Mexico City policy in one of his first acts as president. The pro-life policy prohibits international aid funds from going to groups that promote or provide abortions. The move defunded two major abortion chains of hundreds of millions of American tax dollars. The International Planned Parenthood Federation estimated a $100 million loss. Additionally, the British abortion chain Marie Stopes International was defunded by about $73 million in U.S. tax dollars.
The Mexico City policy, which began with President Ronald Reagan, historically has been supported by pro-life presidents and rescinded by pro-abortion presidents. Trump went further, though. He not only reinstated the policy but also expanded it by increasing the number of global health assistance funds and government programs that are covered under the policy.
#2 Defunding Planned Parenthood Ally UNFPA
The Trump administration stopped funding a United Nations agency linked to forced and coerced abortions. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) “partners on family planning activities with the Chinese government agency responsible for these coercive policies,” the administration said in defense of its decision. China’s oppressive one child policy, recently changed to a two-child limit, has led to forced and coerced abortions up through nine months of pregnancy, as well as forced and coerced sterilizations.
The UNFPA has worked hand-in-hand with Planned Parenthood to promote abortion worldwide, and Planned Parenthood was caught sharing offices in China with UNFPA to promote population control.
The decision stopped at least $32.5 million tax dollars from funding the pro-abortion agency in 2017, the Associated Press reported at the time. The Trump administration redirected the funds to the U.S. Agency for International Development, which provides medical care to families across the world.
#3 Cutting Planned Parenthood Funding $60 Million
In 2019, President Donald Trump enacted a new Title X rule to ensure that the program does not indirectly fund abortions. Title X provides family planning and other health services for low-income individuals. Planned Parenthood could have complied with the rule by stopping abortions or completely separating its abortion business from its actual health services, but it refused. Instead, it prioritized abortions over women’s health. Therefore, it was defunded of about $60 million.
The abortion chain challenged the rule in court, but, in May, a federal appeals court upheld the rule.
However, some pro-abortion Democrat governors defied Trump’s effort by giving their state taxpayers’ money to Planned Parenthood instead.
#4 Cutting Planned Parenthood Funding $200 Million
A fourth effort to cut sex education funding from the abortion chain was blocked in federal court.
In 2017, the Trump administration announced plans to cut millions of dollars in grants to Planned Parenthood through the failed Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program. HHS spokesman Mark Vafiades told the New York Times last year that there is very little evidence that the program was successful. The cuts amounted to about $200 million in grants to the abortion chain and other participants.
However, Planned Parenthood sued, and a federal judge ruled in favor of the abortion chain in 2018.
#5 Helping States Defund Planned Parenthood
In 2018, Trump signed an executive order so states have more control over taxpayer funds to Planned Parenthood and other abortion groups. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that the administration was rescinding Obama-era Medicaid guideline that limited the way states could take action against Planned Parenthood.
After Planned Parenthood was exposed for allegedly selling the body parts of aborted babies, many states wanted to revoke taxpayer funding for the abortion company. However the Obama administration made it difficult for states to do that by claiming federal control over Medicaid dollars even though states participate with their own taxpayer funds and the federal program. Trump changed that, and a number of states have since taken action to defund Planned Parenthood.
#6 Stopping Planned Parenthood Funding in Coronavirus Relief Bill
This spring, the Trump administration tried to stop Planned Parenthood from getting coronavirus relief funds meant to help struggling small businesses.
A Trump administration official told the Daily Caller that the Paycheck Protection Program included language making it “clear that the abortion industry shouldn’t be able to qualify for those funds, which are desperately needed by small businesses.”
“The interim final rule made crystal clear that an organization with Planned Parenthood’s corporate structure doesn’t qualify,” the official said.
However, the abortion chain found a loophole in the aid program, and many of its affiliates applied for and received funding. In total, Planned Parenthood received approximately $80 million.
Now, the Trump administration is demanding Planned Parenthood return the funds, and it may file criminal charges against employees of the abortion giant if they lied on the applications. Some affiliates have returned the funds, while others have refused.
#7 Helping Texas Defund Planned Parenthood
In January, the Trump administration granted Texas a waiver in its long-fought battle to defund Planned Parenthood and use tax dollars to support real women’s health care.
The waiver allowed Texas to defund Planned Parenthood and other abortion groups from its Healthy Texas Women Program. State lawmakers defunded abortion groups from the program in 2011, but the pro-abortion Obama administration retaliated by revoking federal funding. For years, Texas gave up federal funding for the program and used only state tax dollars to support Healthy Texas Women.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) waiver reversed the Obama-era decision and restored $350 million in federal funding to the program, which provides medical care for low-income women.
Planned Parenthood’s abortion numbers are above 345,000 a year, and its annual reports show record billion-dollar revenues. Its own employees have accused it of being more concerned about money and prestige than women in need. And yet, the abortion chain continues to receive hundreds of millions of taxpayer funds each year. With pro-abortion Democrats in control of the U.S. House, that likely will continue – unless Americans vote in pro-life leaders in November.
