By The Herald Editorial Board
With repeated, yet unsuccessful, attempts by congressional Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood — even with one-party control of Congress — the effort has now moved to the Trump administration, which last week proposed reviving a federal rule last attempted during the Reagan years.
The proposed rule would deny federal funding of contraceptive services at clinics and other health care providers that make abortion referrals or provide abortion medications and procedures. The federal Title X program last year provided about $286 million for contraception, screenings for sexually transmitted diseases and other reproduction health services to millions of women through Planned Parenthood and other providers.
Planned Parenthood and other providers already are barred from using federal funds to perform abortions. The proposed rule, drafted by the Health and Human Services Department, would expand that prohibition and bar Planned Parenthood and clinics that provide abortions from receiving Title X funds. It would also impose what opponents are calling a “gag rule,” pulling Title X funds from groups that simply advise clients on abortions and refer them to abortion providers.
The move, however, is as ill-informed and prone to backfire as was the administration’s attempt to pull support from a federally funded teen pregnancy prevention program — also run by Planned Parenthood — that provided comprehensive contraceptive information to teens. In April, a U.S. District Court judge in Spokane issued a permanent injunction that stops Health and Human Services from cutting funding for the final two years of a study of prevention programs run by Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho. The HHS director has sought preference in funding for abstinence-only programs.
As with the attempt to pull funding from pregnancy prevention programs, withholding support from Planned Parenthood and others that provide referrals on abortion — because of the comprehensive medical care and consultation they provide — could bring an increase in unwanted pregnancies and abortions by limiting access and information to women, especially low-income women and teens.
Unwanted pregnancies and abortions saw a decline between 2005 and 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During those 10 years, the total number of abortions (652,639 in 2014) declined 21 percent, and the abortion rate (12.1 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15-44 in 2014) declined 22 percent. As well, timely availability of information has meant that a large majority of abortions are performed early in pregnancies; 91.5 percent were performed at or before the 13th week of pregnancy in 2014.
The loss of Title X funding could reverse that progress.
Of the 6.2 million women who received publicly supported contraceptive services in the U.S. in 2015, Title X funded services for 3.8 million women, according to a study by the Guttmacher Institute. The same study found that publicly funded contraceptive services — Title X and Medicaid combined — helped women prevent 1.9 million unplanned pregnancies and an estimated 628,600 abortions. Without public funding, the report concludes the abortion rate would have been 67 percent higher and would have more than doubled for teens, increasing 102 percent.
In Washington state, in figures cited by Sen. Patty Murray last week, more than 82,500 women received Title X contraceptive care in 2015, 80 percent through Planned Parenthood. The result was the prevention of 17,700 unintended pregnancies and 6,000 abortions, including 1,300 fewer abortions among teens.
Removing Planned Parenthood from Title X eligibility, Murray said, would mean that caseloads at the remaining Title X-funded providers — such as community health centers that already are stretched thin — would have to try to serve three times the clients, and then would be forced to comply with the “gag rule” on information and referrals for abortion.
In Snohomish County, of the 12 clinics that provide publicly funded contraceptive care and reproductive health care, three are operated by Planned Parenthood in Everett, Marysville and Lynnwood.
In seeking to gut the funding that Planned Parenthood and others use effectively to protect women’s health and limit unintended pregnancies and abortions, their opponents risk reversing the progress made in recent years.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
