Biden instructs HHS to review Trump’s Title X rule, restore funding to Planned Parenthood

President Joe Biden signed a presidential memorandum on Thursday, January 28, 2021, instructing the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to review the Trump administration rule blocking abortion businesses and centers that refer patients for abortion from receiving federal funding through the Title X family planning program.

The 2018 “Protect Life Rule” required abortion businesses to both fiscally and physically separate family planning/birth control services from their abortion-related business. It also stated that family planning centers must stop referring patients for abortions in order to receive Title X funding.

Title X states, “None of the funds appropriated under this title shall be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning.” The Department of Health and Human Services under Trump worked to ensure this was properly enforced.

From 2013 to 2015, Planned Parenthood received $1.5 billion in federal funding, including $170 million from the Title X “family planning” program. That program was Planned Parenthood’s second largest source of federal funding after Medicaid. When the Protect Life Rule went into effect, Planned Parenthood chose to refuse federal funding from Title X rather than comply with the rule. This freed up $33 million in Title X funds to go to recipients that did comply.

READ: Biden set to immediately undo Trump administration’s pro-life policies

Planned Parenthood president Alexis McGill Johnson said at the time that the abortion giant would “refuse to cower to the Trump-Pence administration” vowing that its doors would remain open. But the majority of people receiving Title X services aren’t getting them from Planned Parenthood.

As Live Action News previously reported, “87% of Title X family planning services providers are not Planned Parenthood facilities… 59% of patients getting Title X services are not getting them from Planned Parenthood,” and the abortion profiteer’s Title X qualified services “have dropped 60% over eight years.” In addition, Federally Qualified Health Centers vastly outnumber Planned Parenthood centers.

The Trump administration did not cut money from the Title X family planning funding. The program was fully funded at $400 million — an increase over previous years’ funding.

Now, the Biden administration wants that funding to be restored to abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood, forcing Americans to give even more taxpayer dollars to the nation’s largest abortion business which commits 40% of the abortions in the country.

Editor’s Note 3/15/21: This article was updated to clarify that Biden has requested HHS review the “Protect Life Rule.”

Editor’s Note 2/1/21: This article was updated to fix an error in how much federal funding Planned Parenthood received through Title X.

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