Latest news with #MarjorieDannenfelser
Fox News
01-07-2025
- Health
- Fox News
Senate parliamentarian OKs ban on Planned Parenthood federal funding in Trump megabill
Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough reportedly has advised that a provision prohibiting Medicaid funds from supporting Planned Parenthood and other clinics that provide abortions can stay in President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill." Senate Republicans revised the provision on Friday from blocking Medicaid funding to abortion providers for a full 10 years to just one year. The parliamentarian's assessment that the provision could remain without jeopardizing the budget package from passing the upper chamber of Congress along party lines was championed by pro-life advocates. "The One Big Beautiful Bill Act that stops forced taxpayer funding of the abortion industry has been retained in the Senate bill, as we were confident it would, though for one year. This is a huge win," Susan B. Anthony Pro-life America's President, Marjorie Dannenfelser, said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "Taxpayers should never be forced to funnel their hard-earned dollars to Big Abortion. This funding currently hits almost $800 million annually." The provision's inclusion, meanwhile, was condemned by Democrats as essentially clearing the defunding of Planned Parenthood. "Republicans will stop at nothing in their crusade to take control of women's bodies and deny them the right to make their own health care decisions," Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., said in a statement. "Republicans are trampling the law to force their extremist ideology onto the American people." The Hyde Amendment, introduced in the 1970s, has long prohibited federal dollars from paying for most abortions, with some exceptions. Planned Parenthood, which also provides other women's health services, such as gynecological exams, contraception and STI testing, reported receiving approximately $792.2 million in taxpayer-funded grants, contracts and Medicaid reimbursements during the 2023-2024 fiscal year. Republicans say the loophole essentially results in taxpayers subsidizing abortions. Planned Parenthood reported performing 402,000 abortions during that fiscal year. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., defended the provision during Monday's vote-a-rama session as "establishing a commonsense protection of taxpayer dollars by prohibiting abortion providers from receiving Medicaid funds for one year." "There was a time when protecting Americans' tax dollars from supporting the abortion industry was an uncontroversial, nonpartisan effort that we could all get behind," Hyde-Smith said on the Senate floor. "Even if we had opposing views on protecting the dignity of human life, this provision does not target any one entity. If a medical provider wishes to stay within the Medicaid program, it should simply cut elective abortion procedures from its services." Hyde-Smith, chair of the Senate Pro-Life Caucus, spoke out against an amendment introduced earlier Monday by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., to strike the provision from the GOP's $3.3 trillion budget package. Murray's amendment ultimately failed by a 49-52 vote, according to the Washington Examiner. Murray claimed the one-year ban on Medicaid funds for abortion providers would "cut millions of women off from birth control, cancer screenings, essential preventive health care – care that they will not be able to afford anywhere else, and it will shutter some 200 healthcare clinics in our country." "This is a long-sought goal of anti-choice extremists—no surprise, it is overwhelmingly unpopular with the American people," Murray said. "But Republicans are bent on ripping away any access to abortion care, and happy to cut off this lifesaving care. No matter that women may not have another place to get the care that they can afford, or another place they can get any care at all!" She pointed to a Congressional Budget Office assessment to argue that "defunding" Planned Parenthood would cost taxpayers $52 million over the next ten years. That was based on the 10-year Medicaid block in an earlier version of the bill passed by the House. This budget provision comes after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that states have the power to block Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood clinics in a major pro-life victory.
Fox News
22-06-2025
- Health
- Fox News
Pro-life movement confronts high abortion rates three years after Dobbs
A 50-year fight to put abortion back in the hands of states ended three years ago with the Supreme Court's landmark Dobbs decision, but the pro-life movement is now grappling with a new reality — abortion remains prevalent. Since securing the legal victory, abortion opponents' concentration has become more fragmented as they contend with evidence that abortions have not decreased and could even be on the rise. Their next big challenges, they say, include neutering the nation's largest abortion vendor, Planned Parenthood, by targeting its funding. Restricting access to pills that terminate pregnancies is another top priority, as is investing in their preferred political candidates and ballot measures. Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-Life America, told Fox News Digital in an interview that Dobbs prompted a "revolution," but she acknowledged that "there is a lot of work to do." She noted the Charlotte Lozier Institute found that abortions increased in the year after Dobbs and that at least 1.1 million occurred from July 2023 to June 2024. "People can sort of assume or just forget how big a moment [Dobbs] is. . . . It is shaking up and realigning public opinion based on where they really stand, so building consensus," Dannenfelser said. "It would be false to think that it could happen overnight, and we're still right in the middle of it." She said she feels the prospect of defunding Planned Parenthood through a broader reconciliation bill in Congress is "strong." The measure would prohibit Medicaid funds for entities that perform abortions outside of rape, incest, and a threat to a mother's life. Planned Parenthood said in a statement in May, after the bill passed the Republican-led House, that the provision would eliminate other services besides abortion and could cause about 200 of its roughly 600 locations to shutter. "If this bill passes, people will lose access to essential, often lifesaving care — cancer screenings, birth control, STI testing, and yes, abortion," the organization said in a statement at the time. In 2021, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) eliminated a requirement that a customer must appear in person to receive mifepristone, the pill used to end a pregnancy. The pills became available by mail, and they are now being shipped all over the country from various organizations, including to most of the states that have abortion bans in place. "The abortion drugs that are being proliferated by big abortion and Planned Parenthood is a direct assault on the sovereignty of states," Dannenfelser said, noting that "the people of half the states have said this is the pro-life law that we want, so in order to undermine that and press their agenda, the abortion lobby is promoting abortion tourism across state lines." Dannenfelser also said her group, which, alongside its campaign fundraising arm, poured $92 million into the 2024 election cycle, is focused on next year's midterm races. She noted she wants to maintain a "trifecta of pro-life administration, House and Senate." But some of those hoping to eliminate abortion say the current administration could do more to help their bottom line. President Donald Trump granted clemency when he took office to nearly two dozen activists who were convicted of blocking abortion clinic entrances, and the president often touts that he appointed three justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. But in terms of the abortion pill, the Trump administration recently moved to dismiss a case in court aiming to tighten FDA restrictions on mifepristone. Trump has vowed to have Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who is openly supportive of abortion access, conduct a study of the pill. Katie Xavios, the national director of the American Life League, told Fox News Digital that she believes Trump "really hasn't been the staunchest pro-life advocate." She said mifepristone distribution has "no guardrails." Dozens of organizations now offer easy access to the pill. Xavios said abortions-by-mail have become the "wild west," and that the government would have to work aggressively to contain it at this point. "I don't think we'll ever see anybody take that away unless we can really get a very truly pro-life person in office," Xavios said. American Life League is a Catholic grassroots organization, and Xavios said one of her group's efforts is to instill values in children that would lead them to opt against abortion if they were faced with the decision in adulthood. Dobbs was not the win for her side that people have framed it to be, she said. "I think we're still kind of seeing the reverberations of that a little bit in the movement, where a lot of people are struggling to find a new legal fight," Xavios said. "But I think the real issue that we're left with is it doesn't matter if it's legal or not if people don't really respect and value the dignity of the pre-born."
