The Supreme Court and Congress have Planned Parenthood in their crosshairs
Trump's budget bill, ruling threaten abortion access


Planned Parenthood is fighting for its life. The organization provides health care to women across the country. But President Donald Trump's budget bill targets its funding, the latest front in GOP efforts to kill one of the country's leading abortion providers.
Trump's domestic policy bill "doesn't directly mention Planned Parenthood by name," said CBS News. Even so, the new law's target is plain: It cuts Medicaid funding to any organization "primarily engaged in family planning services, reproductive health, and related medical care." The new law was signed in the days after the Supreme Court ruled that state governments can defund Planned Parenthood, said USA Today. Planned Parenthood is trying not to turn patients away, but "we may not be able to do that for long," said Dr. Katherine Farris of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic.
'De facto ban' on health care
Planned Parenthood "may not survive the Trump administration," said Moira Donegan at The Guardian. The organization is a "symbolic and material cornerstone of women's equality" that has served millions of patients. Now that standing is in danger thanks to conservatives in Congress and the Supreme Court. Federal funding does not pay for abortions, so the issue is whether Planned Parenthood will be paid for the "wide array of services" such as "pap smears, prenatal care and STD testing" the organization provides to a "disproportionately low-income clientele." But cuts approved by Congress and the courts will cripple Planned Parenthood, resulting in a "de facto ban" on both abortion and "any health care provision by pro-choice providers."
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"Social conservatives have dreamed for decades about bankrupting Planned Parenthood," said Matthew Hennessey at The Wall Street Journal. The claims that the organization provides "vital health care" are "hogwash." The organization's mission is "killing babies," not providing care. Social conservatives should be wary of efforts to evade or blunt the law, but it looks like they are getting what they have long wanted. "The end of the relationship between taxpayers and the abortion industry is a beautiful thing."
Trump's attack on Planned Parenthood "punishes rural women," said Carmen James Randolph, CEO of the Women's Foundation of the South, at MSNBC. The "deliberate attempt to kill reproductive freedom" will particularly hurt women in rural areas where "health systems are already under-resourced, rural clinics are vanishing" and maternal mortality rates are already too high. The result is a "death sentence for them and their babies."
Singled out for 'unfavorable treatment'
More than 1 million people rely on Planned Parenthood for "basic and preventative health care," said The Washington Post. The new law will force clinics to decide between abortion services or continuing to furnish other "crucial reproductive and sexual health services for low-income patients." "I'm heartbroken," said Anne Logan Bass, the clinical director at Planned Parenthood South Atlantic.
Planned Parenthood is fighting back. On Monday, it won a temporary injunction against the new law, said ABC News. The defunding provision "impermissibly" singles out the organization for "unfavorable treatment," the organization said. The reprieve may be short-lived: The injunction ends in 14 days.
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Joel Mathis is a writer with 30 years of newspaper and online journalism experience. His work also regularly appears in National Geographic and The Kansas City Star. His awards include best online commentary at the Online News Association and (twice) at the City and Regional Magazine Association.
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