Planned Parenthoods Rescued By Obama Administration With Large Title X Grants

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Ten Republican-controlled state legislatures have voted to defund Planned Parenthood since the 2010 midterm elections, but the clinics affected by the cuts will not have to shut their doors any time soon. The Obama administration so far has awarded hefty new federal family planning grants to Planned Parenthood clinics in three states that have cut the providers’ funding: New Jersey, Tennessee and North Carolina.

A Planned Parenthood clinic in Durham, N.C., was awarded a $426,000 Title X grant on Wednesday, just weeks after the state legislature overrode Gov. Bev Perdue’s (D) veto and cut $343,000 in state money from the provider’s budget. Anti-abortion lawmakers and advocacy groups are furious that the Department of Health and Human Services seems to have circumvented state legislatures to continue funding an organization they oppose.

“Yesterday President Obama said he supports Planned Parenthood because he wants his two daughters to be able to ‘control their own health care choices’,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List, said in a statement on Wednesday. “This morning we find that he once again is using euphemisms like ‘choice’ and ‘control’ to trample the rights of states and force pro-life taxpayers to fund the abortion business.”

Republican North Carolina State Rep. Nelson Dollar told the Boston Herald that the new grant to Planned Parenthood was “indicative of the federal government playing politics with taxpayer money.”

While Obama supports Planned Parenthood, the direct Title X grants are not exactly unusual: HHS has contracted directly with Planned Parenthood providers for years, including under former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. But the Planned Parenthood clinics that are receiving new federal grants this year are applying for those grants for the first time after defunding in their states created a need for federal money…