The Trump Administration Is Giving Family Planning Funds to a Network of Anti-Abortion Clinics

[Judi Lynn]

The Obria clinics refuse to provide contraception and are determined to make America chaste again.
STEPHANIE MENCIMERJANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020 ISSUE

When I walked into the Obria clinic in Whittier, California, one evening in July, a woman in a modest floral-­print dress organizing bundles of diapers in a back room greeted me hopefully. She thought I’d come for a class. Instead, I asked if I had come to the right place for birth control. Furrowing her brow, she walked around a couch and through a cozy waiting room full of baby toys to the front desk. “What sort of services were you looking for?” she inquired. I asked if they dispensed the morning-after pill, the emergency contraception often called “Plan B.” She told me curtly, “We don’t provide that or refer for any birth control here.”

I wasn’t surprised. For most of its existence, this clinic has been known as the Whittier Pregnancy Care Clinic, a religious ministry that offers free pregnancy tests and ultrasounds in the hopes of dissuading women facing an unplanned pregnancy from having an abortion. The clinic provides lots of things: free diapers and baby supplies, and post-abortion Bible-based counseling. What the clinic has never provided is birth control.

When the Whittier clinic was strictly saving babies for the Lord, its refusal to dispense even a single condom was a private religious matter in the eyes of its funders. But today, the clinic is part of Obria, a Southern California–based chain of Christian pregnancy centers that in March won a $5.1 million Title X grant to provide contraception and family planning services to low-income women over three years. Created in 1970, Title X is the only federal program solely devoted to providing family planning services across the country. Congress created the program to fulfill President Richard Nixon’s promise that “no American woman should be denied access to family planning assistance because of her economic condition.” It serves 4 million low-income people nationwide annually on a budget of about $286 million and is estimated to prevent more than 800,000 unintended pregnancies every year.

Historically, federal regulations required that any organization receiving Title X funding “provide a broad range of acceptable and effective medically approved family planning methods.” But as I discovered during my visit to Whittier and other Obria clinics last summer, the organization’s clinics refuse to provide contraception. Nor do they refer patients to other providers for birth control.

More:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/11/the-trump-administration-is-giving-family-planning-funds-to-a-network-of-anti-abortion-clinics-obria/?fbclid=IwAR25EE08TDV9Wq2oOYQeNhSSL-n8TfqB7jYnQemizulstapCwLtRqHO9iaU

[lunasun]

1. Kick

[OAITW r.2.0]

2. Before he ran for office, he was a huge advocate for a women's right to choose. Understandable

as it fit with his sexual proclivities. Obviously, it only mattered when the decision impacted him directly. Now, it is simply a part of his political, cynical calculus. He can always arrange abortions somewhere, but he can't shore up a few million votes of the morons who think they know better for all of us.

[calimary]

3. K&R

[OAITW r.2.0]

5. My rights as a male are completely aligned with a woman's right to choose.

Fuck religious dogma and existential hypocrites - led by Pence. Blessing taxpayer payouts to cover the smartest hucksters that know the rules before we do. Jim and TammyFaye got it going in the 70's, marketing wise. Jim never got the new marketing that permeates today.. Sadly, Jim is relegated to praise Jesus and his 2 gallon pail of survival slop, Sorry. no cabana boys for you!

[MasonDreams]

4. Well it's about time, this will fix those god forsaken hippy liberal policies

Of Richard M Nixon! Birth Control and environmental protection? What is this world coming to?

SARCASM SARCASM 😜

[lostnfound]

6. The fact that these places don't cover actual BIRTH expenses speaks volumes

Not even PAP smears. Basically, taxpayer funded preachers.