Crosstalk: May 22, 2018

Last Friday, President Trump took an important step to protect human life. He announced new regulations to pull millions of federal tax dollars that would have otherwise gone to businesses such as Planned Parenthood. Now the money will go to agencies that don't promote the slaughtering of children in the womb.

Joining Jim to bring listeners the specifics regarding this issue was Brad Mattes. Brad is the president and CEO of Life Issues Institute headquartered in Cincinnati. Their mission is that of assuring through education, equal protection under the law for all living humans from the beginning of their biological life at fertilization until natural death.

Title X funding was set by Congress to provide family planning funding for individuals who can't afford it. That's 286 million in total funding. Brad noted that it really hasn't been directed toward family planning as intended. Instead, it's resulted in a 'slush fund' for the general operations/assistance of organizations. Planned Parenthood gets between 50 and 60 million of that 286 million total.

Actually, President Ronald Reagan came out with a rule protecting life in 1988. He said that recipients of Title X funding couldn't share a location or staff with a facility that performs abortions. They also couldn't counsel or refer for abortion. All the protections for babies and mothers went to the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, President Clinton wiped out the gains that had been made. He then added another rule that recipients of Title X must be required to refer for abortion. This meant that anyone who wanted that money must tell women where to go for an abortion when they come through the door.

According to Brad, regarding the Protect Life Rule, President Trump has basically followed the guidelines of President Reagan. However, the president didn't require that they could not refer or counsel for abortion. So if you hear Planned Parenthood or others in the abortion business claim that President Trump has instituted a 'gag rule', that's a lie. The president did add that you don't have to refer for abortion. That conceivably could result in pro-life women's centers applying for and receiving Title X funding which has never happened before.

To summarize, Brad communicated that no organization can receive Title X funds if they also engage in abortion. President Trump is basically disengaging family planning from the abortion industry.