Joe Biden Bows to Planned Parenthood: Plans Reversal of Trump Abortion Rule

US President Joe Biden speaks from the Treaty Room in the White House on April 14, 2021 in
ANDREW HARNIK/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Dr. Susan Berry

The Biden administration, with Planned Parenthood ally Xavier Becerra at the helm of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), announced Wednesday its plans to reverse the Trump administration’s Protect Life Rule, which created a clear boundary between abortion and family planning.

The announcement of the proposed rule, titled “Ensuring access to equitable, affordable, client-centered, quality family planning services,” said HHS intends to return to the Title X family planning regulations first enacted by the Clinton administration in 2000:

HHS proposes to revise the rules issued on March 4, 2019 (84 FR 7714), establishing standards for compliance by family planning services projects authorized by Title X of the Public Health Service Act. Those rules have undermined the public health of the population the program is meant to serve. The Department proposes to revise the 2019 rules by readopting the 2000 regulations (65 FR 41270), with several modifications needed to strengthen the program and ensure access to equitable, affordable, client-centered, quality family planning services for all clients, especially for low-income clients.

Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) said in a statement the proposed rule change is another effort by the Biden administration to direct taxpayer funds to the abortion industry:

Abortion is not family planning, it is family destruction. President Biden’s actions today are an attempt to provide a taxpayer funded giveaway to Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry. This defies the law and tramples over the consciences of health care providers and the American taxpayers.

Daines’ office noted the Biden HHS proposed rule would:

  • Allow taxpayer-funded Title X programs to support and promote abortion
  • Provide tens of millions of dollars in funding to Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry each year
  • Force providers, including faith-based providers, to refer for abortion in a blatant violation of the Weldon Amendment

In February 2019, the Trump administration issued a final rule that underscored that federal taxpayer funds provided for the Title X family planning grant program may not be used to support abortion in any way.

The Trump HHS rule blocked federal family planning funding to Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers who referred girls and women for abortions as part of their family planning services.

Specifically, the regulation prohibited the use of the funds to “perform, promote, refer for, or support abortion as a method of family planning.”

The rule reinstated President Ronald Reagan’s “Protect Life Rule,” which barred the “co-location” of federally funded family planning clinics with abortion clinics.

At the time the Trump administration proposed the new rule, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), who has served as co-chair of the House pro-life caucus, said the Title X program “can now finally return to its originally intended purpose—the provision of family planning services, not abortions.”

“Title X funding was never intended to facilitate Planned Parenthood’s hideous dismemberment, chemical poisoning, or deliberate starvation and forced expulsion of a defenseless unborn baby,” Smith said in a statement sent to Breitbart News.

The Trump administration rule established a clear line between family planning and abortion. Planned Parenthood and other abortion vendors who wished to continue to receive Title X family planning funds would be required to move their abortion services offsite to an entirely different location.

Though Planned Parenthood still receives at least $500 million annually in federal taxpayer funds, the abortion vendor decided to opt out of the Title X grant program, and $60 million in funding, rather than comply with the Trump administration rule.

Planned Parenthood then turned to Democrat-led states to wrest family planning funding from them in an effort to make up the dollars it voluntarily gave up in order not to comply with the Trump rule.

Planned Parenthood CEO Alexis McGill Johnson applauded the proposed rule with gratitude expressed to Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, whose political campaigns have been funded by Planned Parenthood, and Becerra:

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) celebrated the proposed rule, referring to the Trump administration’s Protect Life Rule as “dangerous”:

Pro-life leaders, however, observed the proposed rule is another example of the Biden administration funneling taxpayer funds to the abortion industry.

Grazie Pozo Christie, M.D., policy advisor for The Catholic Association, said in a statement:

The newly proposed Title X rules fail to recognize that abortion has never been an accepted method of family planning. They would undo the progress that has been made towards disentangling American tax dollars from funding the abortion industry. Instead, these new rules would result in tens of millions of taxpayer dollars being once again funneled to abortion businesses like Planned Parenthood, when polls consistently show that U.S. taxpayers do not want to underwrite this life-ending procedure.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, said, from the start of their administration, Biden and Harris “have worked to pay back the abortion lobby that spent millions to elect them.”

“Coming on the heels of the Biden FDA’s refusal to enforce safety regulations on dangerous abortion drugs, plus Biden’s efforts to undermine the Supreme Court, their latest push to bail out the abortion industry proves there is no rule they won’t rewrite or simply ignore to get their way,” Dannenfelser asserted.

“President Trump’s Protect Life Rule respected both the plain statutory language of Title X and the strong majority of Americans who oppose using taxpayer dollars to pay for abortion on demand,” she added. “Abortion is not ‘family planning’ and Biden-Harris Democrats pursue this extreme, unpopular agenda at their political peril.”

The Biden administration proposed rule will be open for public comment for 30 days beginning Thursday.

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