Taking Down Planned Parenthood – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

There are several ways to approach America’s abortion problem.

The one most pro-lifers are most familiar with involves overturning Supreme Court rulings and writing legislation that makes it more and more difficult to provide a legal abortion. It’s a good strategy. After all, to paraphrase St. Paul, law is a teacher and so, if we want to change the culture, law isn’t a bad place to start. It is, however, inefficient and slow.

Another way to approach the problem? Defund the industry offering the abortions.

Obviously, it’s not a novel idea. Pro-lifers have been clamoring for it for a long time and, during his first term, Donald Trump refused to give Title X funding to clinics that recommended patients for an abortion (a move that forced Planned Parenthood to forgo federal funding until President Joe Biden took office).

Even on the campaign trail, despite the fact that J.D. Vance said he supports access to the abortion pill, mifepristone, Vance promised the new administration would defund Planned Parenthood on the basis that “taxpayers should not fund late-term abortions.”

On March 25, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration planned to cut what turned out to be at least $27.5 million in funding under Title X to Planned Parenthood and other organizations while it investigated their DEI initiatives. That report was confirmed after Planned Parenthood said that nine of its affiliates were notified that their Title X funding would be withheld beginning Tuesday.

The Trump administration hasn’t publicly commented on the funding freeze yet, but it doesn’t seem to have much if anything to do with the abortion services Planned Parenthood provides. According to Alexis McGill Johnson, the organization’s president, decreased funding will mean “cancers go undetected, access to birth control is severely reduced, and the nation’s STI crisis worsens.”

The funding freeze doesn’t come at a good time for Planned Parenthood. Last month, the New York Times talked to patients reporting badly botched abortions that put them in the ER giving birth to still-living premature infants and care facilities with sewage leaking into post-abortion recovery rooms. According to the Times, the problem is primarily a funding one.

Planned Parenthood and its affiliates around the country are primarily funded by Medicaid, donations, and Title X funding. To freeze $27.5 million of that will come as no small blow, but Title X funding is just the first prong of the newest attempt to defund Planned Parenthood.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case from South Carolina in which abortion clinics challenged the state’s decision not to allow Medicaid recipients to use their government-supplied health insurance at facilities that offer abortions because, as the state’s governor reasoned, Medicaid payments for other procedures “frees up their other funds to provide more abortions.”

Even if South Carolina loses the case, the Wall Street Journal observed that Republican legislatures hoping to restructure Medicaid could make changes at the federal level to Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid funding.

All of these small changes could make a huge difference in the fight to take down an organization dedicated to eradicating the most helpless among us. Planned Parenthood is currently responsible for roughly a third of America’s abortion procedures. To cripple, or even force clinics to simply close from a lack of funding, would be a huge win in the fight to build a society that does not encourage women to end the life of their unborn children.