Commentary

A substantial portion of the U.S. Congress issued a letter today urging the Department of Health & Human Services to revise its rules granting “Family Planning” funds to abortion providers like Planned Parenthood.

Congressman Labrador was one of 153 members of the House to co-sign the letter.

A companion letter was signed by 41 members of the U.S. Senate, including Idaho’s own Mike Crapo and Jim Risch.

Strangely, Congressman Mike Simpson did not sign the House letter. Simpson just misses too many such opportunities to defend the vulnerable.  In this case, it is particularly troubling because of the substantial power Simpson holds on budgetary matters.

Planned Parenthood continues to receive about $60 million each year from federal and state taxpayers through the Title X “Family Planning” program. This is in addition to the hundreds of millions it gets under the Medicaid program – a situation which screams for Congressional action.

The Senate letter points out that Congress acted decades ago to restrict Title X monies away from any entity that promotes abortion as a method of family planning. Yet regulations adopted by the Clinton Administration undermine the clear intent of Congress by granting monies to Planned Parenthood.  In fact, the current regulations actually require that agencies receiving Title X money refer pregnant women for abortion.  The still-in-effect regulations allow Title X grantees to share waiting rooms, staff and facilities with abortion clinics.  Obviously, such regulations are tailor-made for Planned Parenthood operations.  And they invite direct and immoral financial subsidies to the Abortion Industry.

The signatories urge Secretary Alex Azar to restore regulations which were in place in 1988: Title X money may not be used to promote, counsel or refer clients for abortion.  And no grantee under the old regulations could be located in an abortion-providing facility.

Such a regulation would make substantial progress toward the goal of ending our sordid partnership with the most evil organization on earth. We applaud Labrador, Crapo and Risch for standing up for preborn babies and taxpayers.