Be careful what you wish for. By disqualifying programs and facilities that perform abortions from Title X family planning subsidies, President Trump is granting the pro-choice side of the debate its wish (or at least, its stated wish) that the government get out of the bedroom.
Oddly enough, the newly announced rule, which is under review by the Office of Management and Budget, is not sitting well with abortion advocates. Quite the opposite, actually.
Kate Brogan of Maine Family Planning, the state’s largest provider of abortions, said this weekend that the recently announced White House regulation would, “bring us back closer to the days when women of means had access to the services they need, and poor women are on their own.”
President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Metropolitan Washington Laura Meyers called the rule an “attack on basic rights.”
“This just isn’t good medicine. This is bad politics, playing with women’s health, and we need to stop it,” she added in an amazingly softball interview with Washingtonian magazine (actual sample question: “Many people don’t realize that Planned Parenthood offers services for men. How will men be impacted if Title X is passed?”)
Dawn Laguens, the executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said elsewhere that “This is an attempt to take away women’s basic rights, period. Under this rule, people will not get the health care they need. They won’t get birth control, cancer screenings, STD testing and treatment, or even general women’s health exams.”
Other abortion-rights groups have called the new policy a “gag rule,” which is interesting considering it explicitly allows healthcare providers to discuss abortion with patients. (It doesn’t allow referrals to particular providers.)
The opposition from abortion providers and their allies suggests two big things about their side of this issue.
First, the “get the government out of the bedroom” line has not been a serious refrain in a very long time. A more correct statement of beliefs would be, “we want government actively involved and participating in the abortion debate — so long as it’s to our benefit.” These groups clearly have no problem with government participation, as the vigorous pushback these last few days over losing federal subsidies suggests.
Second, the opposition calls into question certain groups’ long-held claim that abortion accounts for only a smidgen of their overall business.
Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest provider of abortions, often claims terminations account for only three percent of its overall business. Put aside for a moment the fact that this figure is bogus and consider the following: “The HHS rule will allow health-care providers to retain federal funds as long as they financially separate abortion provision from the rest of their business,” Alexandra DeSanctis notes in National Review. “If abortion is truly just 3 percent of what Planned Parenthood does — and if, as its leaders allege, its other services are truly irreplaceable — surely it wouldn’t be too much of a strain to financially separate abortion and retain Title X funding for the rest of its work.”
It’s not like separating the two has never been suggested before.
“Just after the 2016 election, Ivanka Trump proposed a compromise like this one to Cecile Richards, then president of Planned Parenthood, and Richards swiftly refused, saying that Ivanka didn’t understand how central abortion is to Planned Parenthood’s mission,” DeSanctis notes.
Groups like Planned Parenthood talk a big game about defending the helpless and less fortunate, but then they keep showing their hand. Their Title X freak-out is just the latest example of abortion advocates making clear where their real priorities lie.
