The country’s top reproductive services group, Planned Parenthood, is pulling out of a federal family planning program to avoid abiding by new Trump administration rules on abortion.
The new rule under the Title X program bans grant recipients from referring patients for abortion.
“We will not be bullied into withholding abortion information from our patients,” Planned Parenthood CEO Alexis McGill Johnson said. “Our patients deserve to make their own health care decisions, not to be forced to have Donald Trump or Mike Pence make those decisions for them.”
Planned Parenthood says its clinics will stay open, but they will have to scramble to make up the loss of federal grants.
Along with providing abortions, Planned Parenthood also provides patients access to birth control, testing for sexually transmitted diseases, cancer screening, infertility treatment, and other services. Many of its patients are low-income and minority women. McGill Johnson says they will be the ones to suffer most.
But a Health and Human Services statement says it is Planned Parenthood that is “abandoning their obligations” to their patients by choosing to reject the regulations for accepting grants.
A federal appeals court is considering whether to overturn the restrictions on abortion referrals.
