OBAMA FINALIZES RULE BANNING STATES FROM DEFUNDING PLANNED PARENTHOOD

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WASHINGTON — The Obama administration
finalized a rule on Wednesday that bans states from defunding family
planning organizations such as Planned Parenthood because they abort
unborn children.

“This rule will strengthen access to essential services like
cancer screenings and contraception for some of the most vulnerable
patients in this country,” Chief Medical Officer Karen Scott of the
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, said in a statement. “Public
comments showed overwhelming support for finalizing the rule, which
clarifies that all organizations able to provide these services should
be eligible to compete for funds.”

A reported 145,000 comments were received about the intended rule.

As previously reported,
in September, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
issued a notice of proposed rule making, advising that intended to amend
the Code of Federal Regulations to read, “No recipient making sub-awards
for the provision of services as part of its Title X project may
prohibit an entity from participating for reasons unrelated to its
ability to provide services effectively.”

Title X was enacted in 1970 under the Public Health Service
Act and authorizes the Office of Population Affairs to oversee the
disbursement of federal funds for the purpose of assisting organizations
that offer “family planning” services. States distribute the capital to
reproductive and women’s health organizations as they see fit.

In recent years, a number of states have sought to defund
the abortion giant Planned Parenthood after granting the organization
funds for years, stating that they do not wish to assist groups that
provide abortion services, even if the funds will not be directly used
for abortion.

But the Obama administration contends that stripping
abortion facilities of funding results in undesired births, and that
such locations are important because they provide contraceptives.

“Reducing access to Title X services has many adverse
effects. Title X services have a dramatic effect on the number of
unintended pregnancies and births in the United States,” HHS said in
September. “For example, services provided by Title X-funded sites
helped prevent an estimated 1 million unintended pregnancies in 2010
which would have resulted in an estimated 501,000 unplanned births.”

The department made similar remarks on Wednesday, remarking
that the organizations are valuable because they also provide testing
and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including HIV,
as well as other reproductive-related services. It acknowledged that its
rule making effort was meant to stop states from defunding the
facilities.

“In the past several years, a number of states have taken
actions to restrict participation by certain types of providers as
sub-recipients in the Title X Program, unrelated to the provider’s
ability to provide family planning services,” HHS wrote. “This has
caused limitations in the geographic distribution of services and
decreased access to services.”

“The final rule clarifies the Title X program regulations by
adding that no grant recipient making subawards for the provision of
services as part of its Title X project may prohibit an entity from
participating for reasons other than its ability to provide Title X
services,” it said.

But the religious liberties group Alliance Defending Freedom
(ADF) decried the new regulation, remarking that there are plenty of
organizations that offer the same services as Planned Parenthood, minus
the child-killing. It said that states should have the freedom to fund
the women’s health groups that they wish.

“Planned Parenthood isn’t superior to true, publicly-funded
health care centers—which are far more numerous—simply because it claims
to focus on dispensing birth control, despite being America’s largest
abortion business,” said Senior Counsel Steven Aden in a statement.

“The Obama administration, even in its waning hours, has
chosen to put Planned Parenthood’s Big Abortion agenda ahead of women’s
health and the right of states to decide how best to prioritize public
health funding so that patients and the most comprehensive health
providers come first,” he lamented.

According to its annual report released at the end of
December, Planned Parenthood performed 323,999 abortions nationwide
during the 2014-2015 fiscal year.

The rule is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 18.