The Trump administration on Wednesday shortened funding periods for the Title X grants given to organizations that provide family planning services from three years to seven months, reported The Hill.
President Donald Trump has made clear his goal to defund Planned Parenthood, and if the changes to the grant funding-periods and requirements for receiving Title X funding are made permanent, it could harm the nonprofit. In July, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that Planned Parenthood would continue to receive Title X funds this year, much to anti-abortion groups’ dismay.
In May, a regulation was proposed that would ban recipients of Title X grants from referring women for abortions and remove the requirement that the organizations provide counseling on abortion as an option. It would also make mandatory physical and financial separation between the organizations receiving funding and the clinics providing abortions. Under current law, no federal funds go toward abortions, but pro-life groups believe this regulation would further separate government money and abortion.
Clare Coleman, president and CEO of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, told The Hill that this change causes these organizations “undue administrative burden, detracting from health care providers’ daily work of delivering high-quality preventative health care in communities across the country.”
The GOP has until March 2019, when Title X funding runs out under the shortened period, to finalize its regulation. Then it can award funding to organizations that fit the new bill.