Posted on 05/21/2018 12:09:12 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
LOS ANGELES, California, May 18, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) -- California’s Democratic Attorney General Xavier Becerra is leading a coalition of 20 attorneys general, representing 19 states plus Washington, D.C., opposing a Trump administration rule change that prioritizes abstinence education over contraception distribution in family planning funds.
In February, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that abstinence messages and natural family planning methods would be given priority in distributing $260 million worth of family planning grants. The announcement did not mention artificial birth control.
In response, Planned Parenthood affiliates in Ohio, Utah, and Wisconsin, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA) have filed lawsuits arguing that the administration lacks the discretion to make such a change under the terms of the original Title X legislation authorizing the grants.
On Tuesday, Becerra announced that he had filed an amicus brief supporting their lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
"By changing the rules, the Trump administration is threatening basic access to essential health care for women and families throughout the country," Becerra declared. "They're shrinking the universe of services that a woman or family can access — having nothing to do with what's related to wise health care choices."
AGs representing Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Vermont, Washington state, and the District of Columbia signed on to the brief.
"Clearly they view the Title X Family Planning Program as their personal slush fund, to which only they are entitled for propping up their massive abortion enterprise," Mallory Quigley, vice president of communications for the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, told NPR. She called the lawsuit “ridiculous.” The Trump administration has declined to comment on the lawsuit so far.
Planned Parenthood has thanked Becerra for joining the dispute on their side, but challengers from both parties have objected to the frequency of his lawsuits against President Donald Trump. The Democrat AG has filed 32 legal actions against the Trump administration over the past year.
“Everything that happens in Washington doesn’t require a lawsuit by the state of California,” Republican attorney general candidate Steven Bailey said in last night’s debate. Democrat challenger Dave Jones said he would “resist” Trump as well, but stressed that “there’s more to the office of attorney general than just suing President Trump.”
The news comes as Trump is set to use Title X as a vehicle to more broadly defund Planned Parenthood, by disqualifying groups that commit or refer abortions from the program, and redirecting the money to health centers that dramatically outnumber Planned Parenthood locations in every state.
The abortion giant is estimated to receive roughly $50 million of its more than $500 million in federal tax dollars from the Title X program. Trump has also pledged to defund Planned Parenthood entirely, though such efforts have stalled in Congress.
Let the states fund it themselves.
Illegal aliens and their terrible impact on our nation? It takes decades to address.
Reducing the killing of the unborn? It takes less than a week for 19 states to jump in to defend sustain the genocide.
No.
If a state wants to slaughter their alive unborn let them pay for it. I do not want that on my soul ... of course satan wants wants us all paying for the evil.
Not sure I understand how one can legally sue the federal government for reasons of the government no longer funding their organization. What grounds can this be based on. It seems bizarre.
RE: Let the states fund it themselves.
THAT should have been the right decision. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court FEDERALIZED it in the infamous Roe vs Wade decision, much like it did with gay marriage.
Wait, isn’t Becerra a devout Mexican Catholic?
And he wants to kill children?
Who knew!
Wonder if all the illegals voting for him know that?!
RE: isn’t Becerra a devout Mexican Catholic?
We could ask the same question of every pro-choice politician who claim to be Catholic.
The AG from my state (Notice I didn’t say my AG) joined this stupidity.
I think I may sue him to provide all of my income rather than the company I work for.
PP has repeatedly said that abortion is only a teensy part of their operation. By defunding the “teensy” part of the operation PP shouldn’t be hurt too badly.
PP needs to be called in front of congress for a full audit of their books.
Note that three generations in this context is roughly a period of between 25 and 35 years.
There was an article posted on FR a little while back that described what a lie that is, and how they cook the books to make abortions have a smaller footprint.
(I can't find it, but it was something like for everything but abortions, they count all the individual appointments, but for abortions, they roll them into one appointment so it counts as one...or something like that. I'll try to find it.
But you made an excellent point...if it is so small, it shouldn't hurt them.
President Trump should give all abortion advocates the Stone Cold Steve Austin salute.
Yep. You want it, you pay for it.
In 2016, Planned Parenthood gave $12.5 million to the campaigns of liberal Democrat politicians. In return, liberal Democratic politicians gave Planned Parenthood $528 million of our tax dollars.
Va. on the list just convicted a man for putting an abortion pill in his girls drink. Difference???
If the 19 states were making sure that school children were being taught the federal government’s constitutionally limited powers as the Founding States had intended for those powers to be understood, then school children would be able to argue the following against federal funding for abortion.
Simply put, since the states have never expressly constitutionally delegated to the feds the specific power to tax and spend for abortion purposes, such funding is unconstitutional.
More specifically, as a consequence of low-information voters not being taught the fed’s constitutionally limited powers, corrupt, post-17th Amendment ratification career lawmakers are able exploit such voters by promising them unconstitutional things like abortion funding in order to get themselves elected and reelected.
In other words, misguided, low-Information voters abuse their voting power by using it to unconstitutional expand the already unconstitutionally big federal government’s powers, unconstitutional federal funding for abortions in this example.
We really need to get rid of the ill-conceived 17th Amendment.
The 16th Amendment can disappear too.
“Va. on the list just convicted a man for putting an abortion pill in his girls drink.”
Practicing “medicine” without a license?
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