Some Encouraging Pro-Life News
By Ray Ross
Back in January of this year, President Trump issued an Executive Order entitled, “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.” The order prohibits federal funding for gender transition, including puberty blockers, hormone therapy (e.g., estrogen and testosterone) and surgical procedures. Up until that time, gender transition of underage persons had been a significant revenue stream for Planned Parenthood.
Within the last month or so, the Prolife movement has had two more significant wins against Planned Parenthood. The first big win was the recent Supreme Court ruling in Medina v. Planned Parenthood which came down on June 26th in a 6-3 decision.
In 2016 South Carolina Governor McMaster issued an executive order to exclude Planned Parenthood from using state Medicaid funds. Planned Parenthood sued to stop the order. In the Supreme Court decision, the court ruled that there were alternative public services available for that Medicaid funding and thereby supported the exclusion of Planned Parenthood from South Carolina Medicaid funding.
More importantly, the ruling provides a precedent for other states like Florida to also stop state Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood.
The second big win occurred on July 4th when President Trump signed into law the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” The law prohibits Medicaid reimbursements for Planned Parenthood for one year. This is the first successful federal defunding of Planned Parenthood in U.S. history.
Planned Parenthood has been receiving approximately $750M in federal funding per year which was a significant chunk of its $2.1B revenue. The result of this act has been the closure of Planned Parenthood offices in numerous states and Planned Parenthood has estimated that it may have to close as many as 200 of its 600 locations. In addition, Planned Parenthood has had to layoff staff and curtail some services. Planned Parenthood of Southwest Central Florida located in Sarasota has now merged with Planned Parenthood of South, East and North Florida and I believe administrative activities in the Sarasota location are now being moved to Miami.