The Trump administration continues to attack women’s access to healthcare. A new ban was announced that would prevent all federally funded clinics from giving abortion referrals to women. Any clinic that provides abortion referrals would lose federal money and clinics no longer have to give the option of abortion to pregnant women.

Faith-based organizations can now seek out federal money since they no longer have to worry about mentioning abortion to pregnant women. This “Protect Life” rule would also ban health clinics from sharing spaces with organizations that provide abortions (such as Planned Parenthood).

This new ban still has to go through the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. After that, there will be a public comment period. If it continues to progress, there will certainly be many court battles. So this ban is far from a certainty, but it’s still scary it has White House support.

Anti-choice groups are ecstatic about this proposed ban, but it’s only going to hurt women and their access to healthcare.

Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said:

“This is an attempt to take away women’s basic rights, period. Under this rule, people will not get the health care they need. They won’t get birth control, cancer screenings, STD testing and treatment, or even general women’s health exams.”

People often forget that Planned Parenthood does SO MUCH more than abortions. Taking away their funding only hurts the people of our country who need affordable healthcare. If people are pro-life, I wish they would spend their energy fighting for access to birth control and sexual education so we would have less abortions!

If you’d like to donate to Planned Parenthood, click here! The attacks on them will only continue under Trump.

PS: I now have a Patreon if you’d like to support my writing and podcasting.