Slowly but surely, day by day, Donald Trump and abortion foes are winning their War on Women in America.
They are rapidly grinding down hard-fought victories achieved half a century ago for a woman's right to choose, access to birth control and basic family planning services. Their ultimate goal is to re-create a Dark Ages of reproductive rights at the expense of America's 120 million women _ a health care system in which the Trump administration dictates what's best for women.
At issue is federal funding from Title X, a family-planning program signed into law by President Nixon in 1970 to provide birth control and other reproductive health care services for women. The Trump administration has issued a new rule prohibiting providers who receive Title X money from referring patients to an abortion service even upon request.
It constitutes a gag order on doctors wanting to have candid conversations with patients about all of their legal care options. It went too far for Planned Parenthood, which decided to withdraw from the program rather than agree to the draconian restrictions. It's a heartbreaking loss for the 4 million low-income women Planned Parenthood serves. But it was the right decision.
Let's be clear. The Trump administration knows that not a dollar of the $286 million that Planned Parenthood received every year through the Title X program went to providing abortions. Federal law already prohibits that. The administration wants to put Planned Parenthood out of business because a fraction _ 3% _ of its services go to offering legal abortions. The vast majority of Planned Parenthood's resources goes for services such as an estimated 500,000 breast exams and 400,000 Pap tests a year, saving the lives of tens of thousands of women.
Women in rural areas, especially in states like Vermont and Minnesota, could see serious delays in access to family planning services because of the Trump administration actions. But, in Northern California, Planned Parenthood has been fundraising for months in anticipation of the decision and anticipates little or no disruption of services in its 19 clinics in Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, San Francisco and San Mateo counties.
In Santa Clara County, Supervisor Cindy Chavez has already called for county government to pay for the $463,265 in reproductive health services that Planned Parenthood currently provides to women in the county. It's the right thing to do in the wake of the federal government abdication.
What the Trump administration and the religious right fail to acknowledge is that Planned Parenthood, more than any other organization, is responsible for stopping unintended pregnancies. The contraceptives the family-planning organization provides in its clinics substantially reduce the number of abortions, a value virtually all Americans share.
When Title X was signed into law in 1970, the notion of providing family planning services nationwide had strong, bipartisan support. Republican President Richard Nixon proclaimed, "No American woman should be denied access to family planning assistance because of her economic condition." Today, Trump and antiabortion advocates have decided they know best which of those services women should receive.
