• • President Trump Makes Planned Parenthood Defunding Official, Rule Would Cut $60 Million in Taxpayer Funding
• • President Trump Ends Taxpayer Funding to Two Biggest Abortion Businesses in Africa
• • Senate Panel Confirms Pro-Life Judicial Nominee Wendy Vitter. Planned Parenthood: "She's Disastrous" for Abortion

President Donald Trump yesterday made his proposed rule official to defund Planned Parenthood of the $60 million dollars that it receives via Title X Family Planning dollars. Last week the president said the rule would be forthcoming and late Tuesday the Trump Administration released the text to the proposed rule, which will go into effect after a standard 60-day public comment period.

This is the second time Trump has taken steps to revoke taxpayer funding for the nation's biggest abortion business - after yanking taxpayer from from International Planned Parenthood during his first week in office.

The proposed rule contains three important parts. The first prohibits recipients of taxpayer funds under Title X from referring women for abortions. The second requires companies that receive Family Planning funds to maintain separate facilities that do abortions as opposed to having their abortion businesses in the same facility as the Family Planning business. Because that is something Planned Parenthood refuses to do, it will no longer be eligible for taxpayer funding under President Trump's proposed rule.

The final section of the rule requires recipients of the Title 10 Family Planning dollars to ensure that they follow all state and local laws requiring reporting of child abuse. Interestingly, the Planned Parenthood abortion company has repeatedly run afoul of such laws by refusing to report cases of child abuse or rape to law enforcement officials after killing the babies of young teenage girls in abortions.

The proposed rule is available here, and it will be available for public comment for 60 days after it is published in the Federal Register.

The preamble of the proposed rule explains that the statutory authority for the Title X program "contains the following prohibition, which has not been altered since it was enacted in 1970: 'None of the funds appropriated under this title shall be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning.'" The preamble then goes on to state that the Department interprets this section "to establish a broad prohibition on funding, directly or indirectly, activities related to abortion as a method of family planning...The Department has determined that the existing regulations do not ensure compliance with the prohibition" in the original statute.

The three new key sections are as follows:

Section 59.14, Prohibits Title X projects from referring for abortion
"A Title X project may not perform, promote, refer for, or support, abortion as a method of family planning, nor take any other affirmative action to assist a patient to secure such an abortion. If asked, a medical provider may [emphasis added] provide a list of licensed, qualified, comprehensive health service providers (some, but not all of which also provide abortion, in addition to comprehensive prenatal care), but only if a woman who is currently pregnant clearly states that she has already decided to have an abortion."


 

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Americans no longer are giving money to the two biggest abortion businesses in Africa, thanks to a 2017 Trump administration policy.

And it's making a huge difference for life.

Marie Stopes International, a British-based abortion chain, and the International Planned Parenthood Federation received millions of USAID tax dollars under pro-abortion President Barack Obama to provide and advocate for abortions in Africa.

However, in 2017, President Donald Trump cut that funding under the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits tax dollars from funding international groups that provide or promote abortions.

Now, Marie Stopes programs in Burkina Faso are slated to close in June as a result of the cuts, Devidiscourse News reports.

The abortion chain's budget for its Burkina Faso programs came entirely from U.S. tax dollars; it would have shut down sooner if the British government had not provided tax dollars to make up for the U.S. cuts, according to the report.

Marie Stopes leaders in Africa said they employed ten women in Burkina Faso to offer "advice on family planning and reproductive healthcare." This almost certainly included abortion, even though killing unborn babies is illegal in many African countries.

Here's more from the report:

MSI and the International Planned Parenthood Federation are among only four to reject the conditions of the [Mexico City Policy.] They offer abortion services, in accordance with local rules, and say it is the last resort in preventing unwanted or unsafe births.

USAID says 733 other NGOs still receive funding. But in Africa, MSI and IPPF are the two largest NGO providers of free contraception and family planning advice.

The NGOs say the contraceptive programmes are crucial in Burkina, where the fertility rate is 5.5 births per woman.

In some villages the MS Ladies operate from government centres, supplementing the limited services on offer. The same grant also pays for training for health workers in 80 government clinics.

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The Senate Judiciary Committee approved additional judicial nominees today from President Donald Trump, including the nomination of Wendy Vitter for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. The committee approved Vitter in an 11-10 party-line vote.

Vitter, currently general counsel of the Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans and wife of pro-life former U.S. Sen. David Vitter, holds a pro-life view on abortion. That has earned her opposition from the Planned Parenthood abortion business. But she did not back down from stating her pro-life views for the committee.

"Senator, out of respect for this committee, although I would normally say that my religious and personal views don't have any bearing on this role, out of respect, I am pro-life, I'm going to say that," Vitter said at her nomination hearing.

But Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups are lobbying aggressively against Vitter, claiming she would be "disastrous" for the future of legalized abortion.

"Wendy Vitter may just be Trump's worst judicial nominee so far - and if you've been paying attention, you know that's really saying something," Planned Parenthood Vice President Dawn Laguens wrote in a letter to supporters. "Unless we stop her confirmation, she could enforce her extreme, anti-abortion views as law, endangering our health and rights and putting lives at risk."

Though bad news for Planned Parenthood, Vitter's nomination provides hope for pro-life advocates and, most importantly, unborn babies and mothers.

For years, Vitter has been leading efforts to protect unborn babies and moms from abortion; she even received an award from Louisiana Right to Life for her outstanding service.

She has presented workshops about abortion risks ("fake science," according to Planned Parenthood, because apparently there are no abortion risks), supported abortion clinic regulations, protested the construction of a giant new abortion facility, attended the March for Life with her family and more.

"Her abhorrent views on reproductive rights and Planned Parenthood have no place on the bench," Laguens continued. "She's spoken at anti-abortion rallies, led anti-abortion panels, and represented organizations that have tried to undermine access to basic health care services." In a clever manipulation trick, Planned Parenthood now refers to abortion as a basic health care service.

Laguens trashed Vitter as an "outrageously inappropriate choice" for judge because she thinks unborn babies deserve a right to life.

Since Trump's election, pro-abortion groups have attacked several highly qualified female judicial nominees because they were conservative. And, ironically, they did so while making claims that America needs more women leaders.

Lately, the courts are where the abortion industry has achieved many of its victories. Abortion activists largely have failed to convince voters to support their radical abortion agenda. Voter-elected state legislators have passed a record number of pro-life laws in the past decade; but the abortion industry has turned to the courts to challenge them.

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By Michael Nedelman and Jacqueline Howard, CNN

Updated 7:06 PM ET, Tue May 22, 2018

(CNN)With a House of Representatives vote Tuesday, Congress passed legislation that could give terminally ill patients a way to independently seek drugs that are still experimental and not fully approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.

After a failed attempt, the House passed its own version of the bill in March after making changes to the Senate bill, which would have required the Senate to vote anew. But House Republicans announced a change of course last week, saying they would vote on the Senate bill.
"It is time for the House to do what Senate Democrats won't and send a right-to-try bill to the President's desk, bringing hope to terminally-ill patients across the country," House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden said in a statement Thursday, when the vote was announced.

The bill gives terminally ill patients the right to seek drug treatments that remain in clinical trials and have passed phase one of the FDA's approval process, but have not been fully approved.
Advocates for the legislation say it opens a door for terminally ill people in states that haven't passed such a law. Critics argue that the legislation disempowers the FDA and won't make it easier for terminally ill people to access these drugs.
Trump has expressed his support for right-to-try legislation and is expected to sign the measure into law.
"We also believe that patients with terminal conditions should have access to experimental treatments that could potentially save their lives," he said in his 2018 State of the Union address. "It is time for the Congress to give these wonderful Americans the 'right to try.' "
Frank Mongiello, who was diagnosed with ALS and whose name is one of four on the bill, has been a lead advocate on the issue and was at the Capitol Tuesday for the vote.
"I think it's the first time I've had butterflies going to the Capitol," Mongiello, who is unable to use his voice, told CNN while using eye-tracking technology.
"It's very important to me to be able to look my wife and children in the eye and say we did everything possible and say we never gave up," he added. "Unfortunately with today's contentious Congress, I won't really celebrate until after President Trump signs the bill."

Where's the obstacle?

"This issue is about real people who are terminally ill, facing the end of the line, and want to have one more shot at life," said Starlee Coleman, senior policy adviser at the Goldwater Institute, a conservative public policy think tank based in Phoenix that supports right-to-try legislation.
Right-to-try laws exist in 40 states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.