Planned Parenthood airs ad during ‘Fox & Friends’ warning against changes to family planning program

Planned Parenthood aired an ad Friday during two news programs President Trump is known to watch, targeting him over possible changes to a federal family planning program. 

In a 30-second spot aired during “Fox & Friends” and “Morning Joe” in the Washington, D.C. and New York markets, a narrator says that the Trump-Pence administration is “going after women’s health and rights” and “threatening a new attack on access to Planned Parenthood.” 

“Tell Trump and Pence to stop the attack on women’s health and rights,” the narrator says. 

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Anti-abortion groups and Republicans are pushing the administration to make changes to the Title X family planning program, a grant program that funds organizations providing family planning services, like birth control and STI testing, to low-income women and men. 

Planned Parenthood currently serves 40 percent of people who get care through Title X. 

Earlier this month, 153 House Republicans and 37 Senate Republicans wrote in letters to the Trump administration that it should bring back Reagan-era restrictions on abortion placed on the Title X program in the 1980s, which were later upheld by the Supreme Court. 

Specifically, those restrictions would prohibit organizations receiving Title X funds from performing or referring for abortions, although federal law bans the use of federal dollars for the procedure. 

Still, anti-abortion advocates have for years argued that money is fungible and can still indirectly support abortions if it goes to Planned Parenthood. 

The Reagan-era restrictions, which were never fully implemented, also would have required a physical and financial separation of Title X clinics and abortion clinics. 

Opponents argue that the changes would block specialized women’s health providers, like Planned Parenthood, from receiving the funds — a stated goal of Republicans and anti-abortion groups.

“The result of this policy is simply to separate the Title X network of family planning providers from abortionists like Planned Parenthood — the nation’s largest abortion chain,” anti-abortion groups wrote in a letter to Alex Azar, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). 

It’s not clear when or if the changes will come, but an HHS official in charge of the program has indicated further changes could be coming.