(TheLibertyRevolution.com) – One of the key components of the $4.89 trillion budget President Donald Trump submitted on Monday was a plan to completely defund Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers. The proposal follows closely with Trump’s policy agendas, but whether it will actually pass through into law is another story.
Currently, Planned Parenthood receives federal funding through both the Department of Labor and Department of Health & Human Services. The United Nations Population Fund, another pro-abortion organization, also receives federal funding.
Since 2016, Planned Parenthood has received more than $500 million in federal funding each year, with the most recent annual report from the organization showing $616 million in taxpayer-funded support.
In part, Trump’s plan reads:
“The budget prioritizes the value of human life by ensuring that federal funding does not support abortions. The budget proposes to prohibit federal funding, such as in the Title X Family Planning and Medicaid programs, for certain entities that provide abortion services. The budget also protects conscience rights, prohibits coercion in healthcare and allows private parties to enforce such rights in federal court. With these protections, the administration will continue to ensure robust protection of conscience rights and religious liberty.”
Trump’s administration has certain powers in fighting against funding Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion organizations. And despite being able to put forth budget proposals that completely eliminate federal funding, they don’t have unilateral power to pass it through into law. As such, there aren’t many people who believe that the final version of the Fiscal Year 2021 budget will include the complete elimination of federal funding as Trump has proposed.
There are plenty of reasons for this, including some filibuster rules in the Senate as well as some Republican congressmen and congresswomen being unwilling to go all the way to fight against pro-abortion organizations. Trump himself, admittedly, hasn’t been willing to outright veto bills that contain funding for abortion organizations as of yet.
To date, Trump has been unsuccessful at passing proposals like this through, but there’s still hope for the future, as Daniel Horowitz, a senior editor of the Conservative Review, has written. He says:
“If outside conservative organizations, media and members of Congress would actually stay focused, President Trump’s second term can be more fiscally conservative. Trump will sign a bad budget if the swamp consensus coalesces around it. But at the same time, if conservatives work to back the non-swamp elements of the administration pushing for spending cuts the president is clearly OK with, he would sign a good budget as well.”
Defunding Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion organizations is just one of the many cuts Trump proposed with the FY2021 budget he revealed this week. Also included in the proposal are cuts to the Department of Education, Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Homeland Security and U.S. State Department.
The budget projects a reduction of $4.6 trillion of the deficit, but the timeline for eliminating it was pushed back from eight years to 15 years.
