Without passing a single piece of legislation and without the assistance of a single one of President Trump’s many originalist judicial appointees, the Trump administration may have made the greatest contribution to the pro-life movement in a generation simply by calling Planned Parenthood’s bluff.
When the Department of Health and Human Services announced its so-called “gag rule,” barring Title X recipients from directing patients to abortion providers, the solution for organizations like Planned Parenthood seemed obvious. Planned Parenthood already has a theoretical funding wall between its women’s healthcare sector, which received federal funds from Title X, and its abortion-providing sector, which was and is legally barred from receiving federal funds under the Hyde Amendment. In practice, a gag rule wouldn’t change that firewall, and in the era of Google, Siri, and Alexa dominating our consumer choices, the very idea of “referring” abortions is more symbolic than anything else. It’s not hard for a nurse on Planned Parenthood’s healthcare side to shrug off the question of referrals in today’s context.
But in the end, that symbolism was enough to make Planned Parenthood drop the Title X program. In the name of worshipping at the altar of abortion, Planned Parenthood willingly withdrew from the federally funded contraceptive program, rejecting $60 million in annual funds intended for pregnancy- and cancer-prevention.
So Planned Parenthood actually chose a symbolic protection of abortion over patients seeking actual healthcare ranging from STI screenings to contraception. In so doing, the organization left 40% of the nation’s 4 million Title X patients in the dust. The money, of course, is a drop in the bucket, considering that the organization reported nearly $2 billion in net assets for the 2017-2018 fiscal year. But that’s not even the big win the Trump administration secured.
The real factor that will crucially reduce our abortion rate are the clinics now filling the void that Planned Parenthood left.
In a radical departure of the anti-contraceptive standalone models of donation-based Christian pregnancy centers, a new coalition of eight Christian clinics have embraced a wide array of healthcare services that can genuinely be called pro-choice, not just using the phrase as a euphemism for abortion. The Source, a Texas-based chain of clinics, will now offer contraception alongside their pregnancy care and pro-life counseling, rendering them eligible for Title X care.
“By merging eight centers under one umbrella, the Source group has been able to raise $2 million, mostly from private donors, to provide the new medical services, even as each center retains its own small budget,” the Washington Post reports. “The chain hopes to someday overtake the number of Planned Parenthood clinics in the state, which is 40.”
In 2020, the Source aims to acquire Title X funding as well, further increasing their profitability and ability to expand.
The U.S. abortion rate has plummeted to its lowest point since the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade. That’s not because of a single piece of legislation but rather a combination of improved contraceptive access, education, and a cultural shift using science rather than misogyny to advocate for the humanity of the unborn.
If more pro-life pregnancy centers follow the path of the Source in merging clinics and providing actual healthcare and pregnancy prevention, they could radically reduce our abortion rate both by providing contraception to the most at-risk women in the country and assisting women already pregnant.
Planned Parenthood claims to care about healthcare above all else, but the firing of Dr. Leana Wen and the organization’s rejection of Title X funds say otherwise. These facts give the lie to the notion that abortion is just a small part of what the organization does, and something they don’t prioritize over actual women’s lives.
Now, organizations equally equipped to prevent pregnancies and better equipped to promote life can claim the funding that Planned Parenthood has been gobbling up, and it’s all because the Trump administration made the bet that Planned Parenthood would walk away from the table.
