Edward Szymkowiak
National Director
STOPP International
In reinstating the Mexico City Policy on Monday, President Bush stated that it was his "…conviction that taxpayer funds should not be used to pay for abortion or advocate or actively promote abortion either here or abroad" (New York Times 1/23/01). I would like to address how President Bush can parallel the Mexico City Policy here in the U.S. by reinstating the legal Title X restrictions that were in place before the Clinton years. Title X is the main source for domestic family planning funding.
Dr. Otis R. Bowen, Secretary of Health and Human Services during the Reagan Administration, issued restrictions in 1988 which prohibited Title X projects from engaging in counseling concerning, referrals for, and activities advocating abortion as a method of family planning, and required such projects to maintain an objective integrity and independence from the prohibited abortion activities by the use of separate facilities, personnel, and accounting records. Opponents have termed these restrictions to be a domestic gag rule.
Planned Parenthood led the charge against these Title X restrictions via a court challenge that put the legal status of these restrictions into a state of uncertainty until Planned Parenthood lost the Rust v. Sullivan case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1991. The Supreme Court declared that the restrictions on Title X funding instituted in 1988 were a legal construction of Section 1008 of the Public Health Services Act.
Planned Parenthood gets a significant chunk of the Title X funds, so you can understand their vehement opposition to these restrictions that would seriously limit their taxpayer funded gravy train. Of course Planned Parenthood was happy when on January 22, 1993, Clinton rescinded these Title X restrictions by an executive memo to his Secretary of Health and Human Services, Donna Shalala.
A July 2000 U.S. General Accounting Office audit (which is posted on the stoppinternational.org website) shows that in 1998 Planned Parenthood got $52,692,060 of federal tax money just via Title X. (Planned Parenthood got a total of nearly $143 million from federal programs that year.) In 1998, the total Title X expenditures were $203 million. Thus, Planned Parenthood got 26% of the Title X funds in 1998.
The 2001 Title X appropriations are $253,932,000. In December of 2000, the Republican controlled Congress approved this amount, which is a $15 million increase from the amount allotted for the year 2000. At 26 percent, Planned Parenthood's take will be roughly $66 million in Title X funds in 2001.
Now, Planned Parenthood sunk well over $7 million dollars into a media and mail campaign during the last presidential election to oppose the Republican candidate for president. Yet less than 2 months after Election Day, the Republican controlled Congress increased Title X funding by $15 million, which will reward Planned Parenthood with more money in 2001. At 26 percent, Planned Parenthood's part of this increase will be about $3.9 million. It just doesn't make sense to me that the Republicans are rewarding one of their biggest political opponents with more funding. The best way to pay back this political enemy is to eliminate its taxpayer funding.
Now let me make one thing perfectly clear. In calling on Pres. Bush to reinstate the legal Title X restrictions, I am in no way implying that this is enough. Title X is bad to the bone. Many of the so-called contraceptives it funds often act as abortifacients that kill a human person before he or she can implant in his or her mother's womb. This is death by chemical and IUD, and we, the American taxpayers, are being forced to pay for such killings via Title X. In 1995, the House came close eliminating Title X completely. By a vote of 224 to 204, the House overruled its Appropriations Committee's decision to eliminate Title X. This is exactly what we are calling for - the total elimination of Title X, and we are asking President Bush to take the lead in this matter.
We have another problem related to Title X and this is the appointment of Gov. Tommy Thompson, by President Bush, as the new Secretary of Health and Human Services. Title X will come under Thompson's jurisdiction. It is true that Thompson did sign some pro-life legislation as governor, however, even Planned Parenthood, on its web site said:
He included funding for family planning for low-income women in the Wisconsin state budget and signed a Medicaid waiver to increase eligibility for access to family planning. Thompson supported Better Futures, a teen pregnancy prevention initiative that sought to increase effective contraception among sexually active teens.
Thompson's support of contraceptive programs, along with his support for fetal tissue research, should have been a red flag to some of the pro-life groups that have hailed his appointment as the new Secretary of Health and Human Services. Thompson will be a key player in any issue involving domestic family planning, including Title X restrictions. Thompson is a Trojan Horse in the pro-life camp; he is not pro-life and I would like to close by condemning President Bush's choice for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson.
