This week, Planned Parenthood withdrew from federal Title X funding rather than comply with the Trump administration’s “gag rule” prohibiting Title X grantees from providing or referring patients for abortion services. Title X funding is mandated to focus on family planning and related preventive health services for patients who are low-income or uninsured. Two-thirds of patients who benefit from Title X funding are at or below the federal poverty line. Providers have already been forbidden from using federal funds to pay for abortions since 1976.
Planned Parenthood has been a controversial organization to many Americans since its beginnings in 1916. Planned Parenthood began their work when information about family planning and contraception were considered “obscene.” The founders of the first birth control clinic were arrested and convicted for disseminating contraception information. In the 1960s, family planning became a central element of the War on Poverty. Today family