New Title X Rules Would Restore Sanger’s Eugenics Project

The Title X program was authorized in 1970 for the purpose of reducing population growth by providing family planning services to low-income women. From nearly the beginning, the program warranted concerns due to its lack of parental notice for minors, the sharing of resources between abortion clinics and Title X clinics in the same facility – or “co-location” — and mandatory abortion referrals for pregnant women. But perhaps the most troubling aspect of the Title X program is that it has provided a high level of funding for the nation’s largest abortion business, Planned Parenthood. Most recently that number was around $60 million per year. This amounts to the government subsidizing abortion without any mandate from the American people.

Some argue that Title X family planning dollars cannot, by law, directly pay for abortions. But these same skeptics ignore the fact that the funding is used to offset the operational and overhead costs of abortion businesses that both encourage and refer for abortions while rendering Title X services. According to the organization’s current president, Planned Parenthood affiliates “proudly” performed 345,672 abortions in FY2018. During this time period Planned Parenthood claimed almost $2 billion in net assets and took in a total of $616.8 million in taxpayer funding — an increase from $543.7 million the year prior.

When the Trump administration’s proposed Title X rules, which were designed to realign with the original intent of the program, required physical and financial separation of abortion and Title X services, Planned Parenthood decided to drop out of it. The abortion business bemoaned the fact that it would lose about $60 million in taxpayer funds that could have helped poor women. But financially dropping out of the Title X program made sense in terms of Planned Parenthood’s bottom line. The $60 million was more than made up for between an increase in Medicaid funding and fundraising off of opposition to the pro-life Trump administration. In fact, Planned Parenthood took in $591 million in donations in 2018, an increase of over 50% from 2014 levels.

Despite this healthy financial picture – thanks to American taxpayer support — the Biden administration is eager to enrich Planned Parenthood even more. The administration’s proposed Title X rules once again permit co-location and mandate abortion referrals, but they also include some troubling additions. The proposed rules specify that, in determining whether to award Title X project funding, the department of Health and Human Services must consider “the ability of the applicant to advance health equity.”

Advancing “health equity” is the federal government’s way of saying Title X grant recipients, the largest of which has been Planned Parenthood, must target underprivileged, minority populations for reduction. This comes just as Planned Parenthood is attempting to distance itself from its eugenicist founder Margaret Sanger, who also targeted underprivileged minorities, and particularly communities of color.

Since the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, some have estimated more than 19 million African American children have been lost to abortion. Tragically, Sanger’s strategy of targeting this minority has been successfully implemented by Planned Parenthood. In 2015, African Americans made up only 13.4% of the population and yet, according to the Centers for Disease Control, they accounted for 36% of abortions performed annually in the United States.

In the name of “equity,” the Biden administration is transforming the Title X program into a taxpayer funded eugenics project in the Planned Parenthood tradition of Margaret Sanger. The U.S. government should play no role in institutionalizing the racially discriminatory strategies of Planned Parenthood and its founder. The abortion industry’s leader is far too controversial (and wealthy) to be worthy of public support.

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