Trump Wants to Slash All Federal Funding for Planned Parenthood

According to an executive summary, the Trump administration's budget suggests cutting funding for Planned Parenthood entirely. Trump's budget proposal “follows through on a campaign promise and prohibits any funding in the Health and Human Services appropriations bill for certain entities that provide abortions, including Planned Parenthood,” the executive summary says, according to the Huffington Post.

“This is the worst budget for women and women’s health in a generation,” said Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in a statement Monday, according to HuffPost. “It guts programs designed to help women and their families put food on the table, get the medical care they need, and make ends meet. Gimmicks and misdirection cannot cover up a deadly agenda that would hurt women and prevent access to basic health care in the U.S. and across the globe.”

Planned Parenthood, which celebrated its 100th year in 2016, gets roughly $500 million a year from the government, mostly through Medicaid reimbursements for services unrelated to abortion. Planned Parenthood has received federal funding since 1970, but since 1976 the women's heath organization has not been allowed to use government money for abortions.

Trump's budget marks the first time since the organization began receiving federal funding that a president has attempted to wholly defund it. It takes the effort a step further than what congressional Republicans had proposed: they wanted to exclude Planned Parenthood from Medicaid benefits. Trump’s budget proposal bars the organization from taking part in any kind of federal program. It prevents the family planning federation from receiving funding from cancer screening from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and grants to prevent sexual assault from the Violence Against Women Act.

The budget proposes other cutbacks, too: it includes killing the National Endowment for the Arts and decreasing funding for PBS. Trump is also suggesting $193 billion in cuts to the federal food stamps program.

The Trump administration is also bent on slashing funding for social safety net programs. "We are no longer going to measure compassion by the number of programs or the number of people on those programs," Trump's budget chief Mick Mulvaney told reporters on Monday, according to CNN. "We are going to measure compassion and success by the number of people we help get off of those programs and get back in charge of their own lives." Mulvaney confirmed that Trump's proposed budget would defund Planned Parenthood.

According to Planned Parenthood's most recent annual report, more than 40 percent of the organization's revenue comes from government grants and reimbursements. This means that the organization's efforts could be severely crippled if the Trump budget succeeds. There could be less money for STD testing and cancer screenings which, according to the 2014-2015 report, together comprise more than half of the services provided by Planned Parenthood affiliates. If this disturbs you as much as it does me, consider checking out Bustle's list of eight things you can do to support Planned Parenthood.