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Planned Parenthood announced Monday that it would pull out of the federal Title X program that helps low-income people access contraception rather than comply with what it calls a new "gag rule" of the Trump administration which forbidden to provide abortion references to these patients.
The announcement is part of a long-standing legal battle with the White House over changes to the nearly 50-year Title X program, which provides $ 286 million annually to health care providers to fund family planning services, such as birth control. The administration asked beneficiaries to explain by Monday how they were complying with the new rule.
Although only seven family planning facilities are direct beneficiaries of the program, many others are "sub-recipients" and all will withdraw from the program.
said Alexis McGill Johnson, Acting President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
The Trump administration has "forced recipients of Title X family planning grants," said McGill Johnson. "At Planned Parenthood, we refuse to yield to the Trump-Pence administration."
McGill Johnson promised that the doors of Planned Parenthood would remain open and that it would continue to provide contraceptive services on the basis of "emergency" funding for Title X patients.
"Essentially using fundraisers for charities – which should be a state responsibility, a federal responsibility – […is] like holding an umbrella during a tsunami, "she said.
Several states have pledged to try to find new funds to replace federal funds. The impact is likely to vary from one state to the other. In some areas of the country, Planned Parenthood is the sole beneficiary of Title X. In some regions, the state acts as the recipient, with several sub-recipients, including family planning institutions and other health care providers. .
Planned Parenthood's decision – receiving approximately $ 60 million in funding – is the largest grant of the program
– is the latest in a long-standing battle between advocates of abortion rights and Republicans, who advocated the elimination of any federal funding for abortion providers and the "disengagement" of Planned Parenthood.
The Trump administration's new policy could affect the country's 4,000 X-funded institutions. But family planning plays an inordinate role in the program, treating 41% of X-ray patients in the country.
Planned Parenthood last week asked the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to block the police while she and other health care organizations appealed the court's earlier decision to allow the new policy to administration. The group warned in a letter last week that without urgent action by the court, it would "have no choice but to withdraw from the Title X program".
The court did not do it but agreed to return to the question
during the oral arguments the week of
September 23
The policy does not prevent health care providers from mentioning abortion, but it prevents them from referring or telling patients where they might have one. Planned Parenthood and the American Medical Assn., Who also prosecutes the administration about the police, call this a "gag rule" because it interferes with the doctor's relationship with the patient and his ability to provide care that they judge the best.
The Trump administration says its policy would ensure that taxpayers do not indirectly fund abortion, a top priority for anti-abortion groups. The Title X program already prohibits participants from using the money used to fund abortions.
In a letter to the 9th Circuit last week, Justice Department lawyer Jaynie Lilley said, "Nothing in the rule will lead to" the expulsion of Title X "from Planned Parenthood. or any other beneficiary. "
"If so, the rule simply requires recipients to refrain from providing referrals for abortions," Lilley wrote. "If the seven direct beneficiaries of Planned Parenthood insist on providing abortion benchmarks, even as part of a federally funded program, and have the sense of wanting to withdraw from the program and the public that They serve, it's their choice and not a consequence of the rule. "
The Trump administration said Monday that all Title X recipients who participated in the program this year were doing so while being fully aware of the conditions that accompanied it and suggested that Planned Parenthood abandon its obligations to patients.
"Some recipients are now accusing the government of their own actions – they have chosen to accept the grant without following the rules that accompany it – and they are giving up their obligations to serve their patients under the program," said Mia Heck, director of external affairs at the office of the deputy secretary of health of HHS.
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