Four million Americans depend on a federal program that provides low income families access to services like STD screenings and birth control.
News13 Washington Correspondent Alexandra Limon looked at a new rule that could cut off access to those grants for clinics like Planned Parenthood.
The Department of Health and Human Services issued a final rule that will eliminate federal funding under the family planning program to clinics that provide abortions, or even provide abortion referrals.
Dr. Leana Wen is the president of Planned Parenthood.
“President Trump is putting a gag on doctors in what it is that we can and cannot say to our patients about reproductive health care,” Dr. Wen said.
White House Counsel Kellyanne Conway said the rule is simple.
“Really just says to the abortion clinics you have to physically separate, physically and financially separate your ‘family planning services’ from your abortion services,” Conway said.
Conway was asked if this is an effort to fulfill President Trump’s campaign promise to defund Planned Parenthood.
“They’ve been running around lying for years that they don’t co mingle their funds,” Conway also said.
“That’s a lie, that’s just not true and not based on fact in any way,” said Dr. Wen.
Planned Parenthood said it obeys the law and federal money is not used for abortions, only for other services like screening for sexually transmitted infections and cancer, and providing low cost birth control.
“The majority of patients that Title X serves are people of color, Hispanic and Latino, and so, the rule imposes yet another level of discrimination,” Dr. Wen also said.
Some Democratic lawmakers already expressed opposition and the rule will likely be challenged in court.
