The Obama administration has given the Planned Parenthood abortion business in Tennessee a three-year grant totaling $795,000.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Grants Management is responsible for the grant to Planned Parenthood Greater Memphis Region (PPGMR) to expand its HIV prevention programs and to integrate HIV prevention with its contraception and birth control programs.
The three-year grant will allow PPGMR to expand its outreach testing program and provide HIV testing and prevention counseling in Spanish to the Spanish-speaking community.
PPGMR currently provides free HIV testing and prevention counseling at three community sites each week, in addition to offering free testing every day at its health center at 2430 Poplar Avenue. “This grant will allow us to bring free weekly testing to more locations, making HIV testing accessible throughout our community,” said PPGMR CEO Ashley Coffield.
The grant will also provide supplemental funding for year-round promotion of Free Condoms Memphis, PPGMR’s free condom distribution program that provides condoms free of charge to the general public at more than fifty accessible locations such as churches, barber shops, nail salons, nightclubs, and many other accessible locations around Shelby County.
The Obama Administration has given the Tennessee-based abortion giant a grant before.
At that time, Tennessee Right to Life officials told LifeNews the funding comes in opposition to the majority of Tennesseans, who oppose public funding for Planned Parenthood.
“While we are disappointed that any tax funding would be directed to private organizations promoting and profiting from the killing of unborn children, this end run around the people of Tennessee will serve to underscore the urgent need to elect a pro-life president, Senate and Congress in November,” said Brian Harris, president of Tennessee Right to Life.
Although Harris is disappointed about the funding, the TRTL president said the federal grant represents a significant decrease in tax-funding the abortion giant previously received, which once amounted to more than $727,000 annually.
Harris said the taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood follows successful efforts by pro-life Governor Bill Haslam and the Tennessee Legislature to redirect public health funds in Tennessee to ethical providers in Memphis and Nashville which do not promote, perform or profit from the killing of unborn children.
In 2011, state legislators passed a budget which was believed to have effectively defunded Planned Parenthood. Following the Legislature’s adjournment, lawmakers realized that pro-abortion language had also been included which nullified the effort to remove funding. In response, the Haslam Administration took action to direct available Title X funds to public health departments in both Davidson and Shelby counties where required family planning services were already being provided. Neither Davidson nor Shelby county health departments perform abortion.
“The stakes for pro-life Tennesseans in the upcoming elections have just been heightened,” said Harris. “We’ve done good work here in Tennessee electing pro-life majorities to the Legislature and Congress. But all of that can apparently be undone unless we have a pro-life president and a pro-life senate solidly committed to defending the weakest and most vulnerable of all.”
