by Fio del Pielago
On March 4, 2019, California’s attorney general filed its 47th lawsuit against the Trump Administration as a result of the most recent rule the Trump Administration enforced. The rule potentially restricts women from seeking family planning and abortion referrals because it could take away millions of dollars from programs such as Planned Parenthood.
In addition to California, at least 20 other Democratic-controlled states and Washington D.C. have filed lawsuits among similar lines.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra voiced, “This illegal Title X rule denies patients access to critical healthcare services and prevents doctors from providing comprehensive and accurate information about medical care, the Trump-Pence Administration’s sabotage of Title X services that millions of women across our nation rely on is not only irresponsible, it is dangerous to women’s health.”
The Administration enforced the rule late last month to Title X family planning grant programs, which requires clinics to physically and financially separate from any abortion providers.
Planned Parenthood is an abortion provider that will be greatly affected by the new rule. A quarter of the fundings Title X provides to family planning programs goes to Planned Parenthood. The funding includes financial support for reproductive health and preventive services to low-income women.
Planned Parenthood President Leana Wen said the organization doesn’t want to participate in the program under the new found rules, she expressed that it would “compromise our ethics.”
Over 300 clinics in California receive fundings to provide birth control, cancer screenings, testing for sexually transmitted diseases and other health care services for primarily low-income patients. Their programs serve about 1 million people a year, more than a quarter of Title X patients in the country.
The controversy of abortion can potentially be a deciding factor on whether you agree or disagree with California filing a lawsuit. Generally, people who dislike the thought of killing an unborn child will disagree with California, such as Freshman Noah Stern “The Trump Administration is right, in my opinion, abortion is wrong.”
On the contrary, some people agree with Becerra’s decision. Freshman Carly Wolf exemplified this by saying, “I do not agree with the rule since it seems extremely unfair to low-income families, since those funding programs were removed, a lot more families will struggle. Women should be able to choose whether or not they want to have an abortion and should have control over what they want to do with their bodies.”
A majority of the changes will begin as soon as this summer, but any physical separation requirements will begin to take their effect on March 4, 2020.