GOP Budget Slashes Planned Parenthood Funding

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The guardrails protecting democracy may have buckled, but they are not broken. Autocratic forces are ascendant in America, but the story isn’t fully written. Truth-telling independent media is one remaining bulwark against Trump’s unrestrained exercise of power. He rails against the press as the “enemy of the people,” because he hates the scrutiny that comes from fearless investigative reporting. Our nonprofit newsroom is built for the chaos ahead. Please stand with us.

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The Planned Parenthood wars are back on in Congress. On Tuesday, Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) released a Labor, Health & Human Services and Education appropriations bill that would slash funding for Planned Parenthood and any other abortion providers.

The bill is a grab-bag of nearly everything Republicans want on reproductive issues. In addition to cutting off funds needed to implement President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, it eliminates Title X family planning funds, allows employers to opt-out of covering contraception or pretty much any other medical care on the basis of “religious beliefs or moral convictions,” and creates $20 million in “abstinence education” grants.

The bill states that Planned Parenthood could continue to get federal funds—if it stops offering abortions.

Markups on the bill were held Wednesday morning, and it’s likely going to be used as a “starting point” for budget negotiations with the Democrat-controlled Senate, the Huffington Post reports.