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 Illinois' action comes a week after a federal appeals court cleared
the way for the administration to cut off Title X grants for
reproductive healthcare and family planning for low-income women at
clinics that refer patients to abortion providers.
Governor J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, said the state would forgo all
federal Title X funding while the Trump administration continues to
impose its restriction - branded by critics as a "gag rule" designed
to silence doctor-patient communications about abortion options.
Instead, the Illinois Department of Public Health will provide state
funding to the 28 local clinics that normally receive Title X money
through the agency, making up for an estimated $2.4 million in
federal dollars they otherwise stand to lose for the rest of the
fiscal year, Pritzker said.
"President Trump's gag rule undermines women's health care and
threatens the providers that millions of women and girls rely on,
and we will not let that stand in the state of Illinois," the
governor said in a statement.
Officials for the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, which
administers Title X, did not immediately respond to requests from
Reuters seeking comment on Illinois' action.
The Illinois Republican Party denounced Pritzker's willingness to
turn away federal funding of "non-abortion-related medical care for
women and girls because of his unrivaled zeal for forced taxpayer
funding of abortions."
At least two other states, Maryland and Massachusetts, took similar
pre-emptive countermeasures months ago, enacting legislation to
temporarily opt out of Title X if the new rule takes effect, and to
provide state funding in its place.
Maine Family Planning, a nonprofit, sole recipient of Title X funds
in that state, has also said it would withdraw from the program
rather than abide by the new rules. The Democratic governors of four
other states - New York, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington state -
threatened to end participation in Title X.
Planned Parenthood, an organization that provides abortions and
other health services for women under Title X, has already said it
would likewise reject Title X money under the new rules, relying
instead on private donations and emergency funds to make up the
difference.
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Planned Parenthood operates 17 clinics in Illinois, said Julie Lynn,
a spokeswoman for the state organization.
AIMED AT PLANNED PARENTHOOD
The administration's policy is aimed at fulfilling President Donald
Trump's campaign pledge to end federal support for Planned
Parenthood, the largest single provider of abortions in the United
States.
The administration's new policy also requires financial and physical
separation between facilities funded by Title X and those actually
providing abortions.
Federal judges in Washington state, California and Oregon, among
nearly two dozen states challenging the administration's rule in
court, issued preliminary injunctions against enforcement of the
rule earlier this year. It had been slated to take effect in May.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on June 20 lifted those
injunctions, and the same court rejected emergency bids to overturn
that decision last week. That allowed the restrictions to go back
into effect while court challenges proceed.
Congress appropriated $286 million in Title X grants in 2017 to
Planned Parenthood and other health centers to provide birth
control, screening for diseases and other reproductive health and
counseling to low-income women.
That funding already was prohibited from being used to pay for
abortions, but abortion opponents have long complained that the
money in effect subsidizes Planned Parenthood as a whole, including
its abortion services.
Planned Parenthood provides healthcare services to about 40% of the
4 million people who rely on Title X funding annually.
(Reporting by Karen Pierog in Chicago; Writing and additional
reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Tom Brown and
Peter Cooney)
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