Planned Parenthood is suing the Trump Administration for making changes to Title X funding that prevents taxpayer dollars from being used by clinics that perform abortions.
The lawsuit argues that the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) “dramatic changes” to Title X funding hurt low-income and uninsured patients, as NPR reported Wednesday. (RELATED: Nebraska Lawmakers Just Passed A Bill To Defund Planned Parenthood)
These “dramatic changes” the document discusses focus specifically on recent amendments made to sections 1001 and 1008 of Title X that simply act as a set of guidelines for those seeking federal health care aid.
As the HHS website explains, Section 1001 will continue to see that federal grants for those in need of health care assistance are allowed for “the establishment and operation of voluntary family planning projects which shall offer a broad range of acceptable and effective family planning methods and services.”
Section 1008 of the Act, the website continues, states that “‘none of the funds appropriated under this title shall be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning.'”
This is where Planned Parenthood — the nation’s largest abortion provider, which accumulated a total of $1.6 billion in net assets and performed over 320,000 abortions last year — comes into the picture.
As the Planned Parenthood legal complaint states, “The government seeks to shift the Title X program away from its core statutory purpose, by dramatically altering the criteria that determine who can participate in the program. Those unexplained and unjustified changes contravene the Title X program as Congress intended it, violate the government’s own existing regulations, and threaten devastating, irreparable harms to the very patients Title X was meant to help.”
This may be the first of many lawsuits filed by Planned Parenthood against the Trump Administration — most notably, its determination to defund clinics that perform abortions.
“The hypocrisy of Planned Parenthood knows no bounds,” said Catholic Association Legal Advisor Andrea Picciotti-Bayer. “Once again, Planned Parenthood is trying to restrict the choices of women — in this case, to try and maintain their virtual monopoly on federal grants for family planning programs. Enough is enough. Women deserve more than simply what Planned Parenthood offers.”