Abortion Activist Sues to Stop President Donald Trump From Defunding Planned Parenthood

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Feb 25, 2019   |   12:00PM   |   Washington, DC

On Friday, President Donald Trump announced a new pro-life rule that would partially defund the Planned Parenthood abortion business. The new rule would cut as much as $60 million dollars of the abortion company’s taxpayer funding.

But one abortion activist is not happy with the decision and plans to sue to try to stop it.

As LifeNews reported, Trump finalized an administrative rule that would partially defund the Planned Parenthood abortion business and deprive it of as much as $60 million in taxpayer dollars. This action adds to President Trump’s record of defunding the Planned Parenthood abortion company.

The abortion chain receives about $50 million to $60 million in Title X funds annually.

Title X funds are supposed to be used to help low-income women and men receive birth control, cancer screenings and other health care services. While the tax money cannot be used to pay for abortions, it indirectly funds Planned Parenthood’s vast abortion business.

Last May, the Trump administration published a new proposal for Title X that would prohibit Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses from receiving any of those tax dollars unless they completely separate their abortion businesses from their taxpayer-funded services. That mean housing their family planning services in separate buildings with separate staff from their abortion businesses and a denial of funds if they fail to do so. Most Planned Parenthood entities are not expected to comply.

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Under the new directive, which will take effect in 60 days, organizations receiving Title X funding have 120 days to financially separate their family planning and abortion operations and one year to physically separate their family planning and abortion operations.

But Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson plans to sue the Trump administration to stop the Protect Life Rule.

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson will announce “an upcoming lawsuit challenging Trump Administration’s Title X “gag rule” issued last Friday that will impact federal funding for reproductive healthcare and family planning services.”

The AG’s office said 91,284 patients in Washington received healthcare through Title X in 2017. More than half of these patients were at or below the federal poverty line.

Ferguson’s announcement is scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday in Seattle. He will be joined by staff from Planned Parenthood, the ACLU Washington, and the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association.

According to National Right to Life, during the Reagan Administration, regulations were issued to restore the original character of Title X by prohibiting referral for abortion except in life endangering circumstances. Additionally, abortion facilities could not generally share the same location with a Title X site.

In the 1991 Rust v. Sullivan decision, the U.S. Supreme Court found similar regulations permissible.

However, the Clinton Administration would later reverse these regulations.

A recent Marist poll found that, by a double-digit margin, a majority of all Americans oppose any taxpayer funding of abortion (54 percent to 39 percent).