Planned Parenthood in Iowa, Montana, New Hampshire, and Washington D.C. will get about $1 million taxpayer dollars in grant money to help clients enroll in new ObamaCare health insurance programs – drawing fire from Republicans who want to make sure the funds don’t go to abortion services, according to Fox News.
The money is part of a $67 million package awarded to 105 groups across the country announced earlier this month, Fox reported.
Republicans say President Obama promised, by signing Executive Order 13535 in March 2010, that no ObamaCare money would go to abortion services.
Adrienne Schreiber, executive assistant to the office of the president at Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, said the 1987 Hyde Amendment prohibits federal funding from going to abortion services.
And the Title X (10) Family Planning program was enacted in 1970 and is the only federal grant program dedicated solely to providing individuals with comprehensive family planning and related preventive health services, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
"All Planned Parenthood affiliates provide family planning services,” she said. “We use Title 10 to subsidize treatment of annual exams and birth control for the poorest of the poor. It's preventative care.”
Schreiber added: “Not every affiliate gets the same amount of Title X money. The money we get here in Washington is very, very low.”
Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in the country and GOP lawmakers contend that there's no way to verify how Planned Parenthood will spend the money.
Rep. Diane Black, R-Tenn., says: “Money is fungible. And so how can we be assured that the money that is being given -- when Planned Parenthood mandates that each of their affiliates are required to provide abortion services -- how do you separate that money?”
Planned Parenthood says it will use the grant money to reach uninsured Americans.
Spokesman Eric Ferrero told Fox News: “... these grants will enable local Planned Parenthood affiliates to help people enroll in new, more affordable insurance plans that cover preventive care, maternity care, and emergency care. These grants have nothing to do with abortion and won't be used for abortion services.”
But Black isn't convinced, Fox asserts.
She has introduced a bill to stop this type of grant money -- earmarked to promote ObamaCare -- from going to Planned Parenthood or any other organization.
Roughly half of the three million patients Planned Parenthood treats every year in its clinics, most of them for women's health services such as Pap tests and pelvic exams, are uninsured, Fox states.
Earlier this year, pro-life marchers came to Washington for the March for Life -- as they have for four decades -- determined, they say, to instill a culture of life in a nation that has seen 55 million abortions since the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.
There were no apparent scuffles or shouting matches. At one point, pro-life demonstrators mingled with the counter demonstrators, using a bull horn to chant, “We are the pro-life generation.” Counter-protestors stood silently by, Fox reported.
