Clinician: Losing federal funds puts women at risk

(21 Aug 2019) The impact of Planned Parenthood's decision to pull out of the federal family planning program rather than abide by a new Trump administration rule prohibiting clinics from referring women for abortions is reverberating around the country. Planned Parenthood's acting president and CEO says the organization's nationwide network of health centers will remain open and strive to make up for the loss of federal money. Nurse practitioner Jolanta Markiewicz (yoh-LAHN'-tuh mar-KEV'-ich), a Planned Parenthood clinician in Chicago, stands by the decision, but says the loss of federal funds will significantly impact her patients. "Very often we're the first provider, maybe the only provider they're seeing and we provide vital preventative health care services that they probably will go without because of this cut to funding," she says. Enforcement of the new Title X rule marks a major victory for a key part of President Donald Trump's political base - religious conservatives opposed to abortion. They have been campaigning relentlessly to "defund Planned Parenthood" because - among its varied services - it is the largest abortion provider in the United States, and they viewed the Title X grants as an indirect subsidy. About 4 million women are served nationwide under the Title X program, which distributes $260 million in family planning grants to clinics. Planned Parenthood says it has served about 40% of patients, many of them African American and Hispanic. Family planning funds cannot be used to pay for abortions. Abortion rights activists are also pressing Congress to overturn the rule, though it seems unlikely that the Republican-controlled Senate would take that step. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...