House Democrats moved Monday to block the Trump administration from cutting off family-planning grants for medical facilities such as Planned Parenthood that also provide and refer to abortions.
“It’s going to save lives, it’s going to keep the Trump administration from shutting the doors of Planned Parenthood, which they have been trying to do from day one,” Rep. Lois Frankel, D-Fla., said of the Democratic proposal in a call with Planned Parenthood Monday.
In the budget draft House Democrats released Monday, lawmakers stipulated that grants known as Title X could not be used to go toward paying for the Trump administration’s new restrictions, which had been set to go into effect Friday. The budget faces an uphill battle in the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans who support cutting off federal funding to Planned Parenthood. Even if it were to pass the Senate, it would be vetoed by President Trump.
Still, the bill allows Democrats to show where they stand on the funding and on the Trump administration’s rules, and it puts pressure on individual Republicans to demonstrate whether they support the administration’s action. House Democrats are planning to raise the amount of the funds by $114 million, to $400 million. The funds now help 4 million people access family planning services, and do not pay for abortions unless a pregnancy was the result of rape or incest, or if a woman has a life-threatening pregnancy.
Under the Trump administration’s rules, which were temporarily blocked last week by a federal judge, medical facilities that receive Title X grants to pay for birth control, testing for sexually transmitted infections, and cancer screenings, cannot be housed in the same building as abortion services. The Trump administration’s rules also say doctors aren’t allowed to directly refer for abortions, leading critics to call the policy a “gag rule.”
“Our bill will reverse the domestic gag rule. … Together we can and we will make a difference for women’s health,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., chairwoman of the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee, said on Monday’s call.
Organizations such as Planned Parenthood have said that in order to keep the Title X grants under the new rules, they would need to build separate entrances and exits, construct new health centers, and hire a second staff of doctors, nurses, and administrative staff. The rule allows them a year to make the changes.
Abortion opponents have long fought for rules along the lines of those published by the Trump administration. They say the funds should instead go to community health centers, and that allocating federal funds for clinics such as Planned Parenthood frees those organizations to move money elsewhere and provide abortions. Planned Parenthood receives between $50 million and $60 million from Title X.
