Millions of dollars of federal funding is being funneled to Planned Parenthood in Tennessee in the latest conflict between the state and the Biden administration.
Earlier this year, the Biden administration disqualified Tennessee from being eligible for Title X “ family planning ” funding because the state had blocked the money from going toward counseling for abortion. According to a new report , $3.9 million of federal money will be sent from the Virginia League for Planned Parenthood to the Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi.
“The federal government withheld critical funding from TN families, so they could funnel taxpayer dollars to a radical political organization. Some things should simply rise above politics — especially resources that TN mothers, children & families have counted on for decades,” Governor Bill Lee said.
“This is wrong on many levels, & the federal government should correct their mistake. In the meantime, TN will continue to fill the void & ensure families across our state receive the resources they need,” Lee added.
The federal government withheld critical funding from TN families, so they could funnel taxpayer dollars to a radical political organization.
Some things should simply rise above politics—especially resources that TN mothers, children & families have counted on for decades.
— Gov. Bill Lee (@GovBillLee) September 27, 2023
The Department of Health and Human Services yanked Title X funding from Tennessee because the state’s Department of Health would not advise women to get abortions. T ennessee’s Title X guidelines stipulated that facilities receiving the funding had to provide “information and counseling regarding all options that are legal in the State of Tennessee.”
In response to the policy, DHS told Tennessee that the “inclusion of ‘legal in the state of Tennessee’ is not an acceptable addition to your policy.”
Tennessee has some of the strongest pro-life laws in the country, not allowing abortions except to “prevent the death of the pregnant woman or to prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.”
Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi celebrated the news, with CEO Ashley Coffield claiming that Lee had “refused to comply with Title X requirements for unbiased patient information.”
“This funding does not cover the cost of our navigation services or the money that we provide to patients to travel out of state for their travel needs … Our donors will continue to support those services,” Coffield said.
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Conservative groups criticized the move, saying that it was a move to go after Tennessee’s sovereignty.
“The Biden Administration, unhappy with Tennessee’s status as perhaps the most Pro-Child state in the country, is continuing its war on Tennessee’s sovereignty by sending previously denied Title X funds to Planned Parenthood,” the Tennessee Faith and Freedom Coalition said in a statement. “It is also egregious to note that the Biden Administration ignores and enables the evil history and practices of Planned Parenthood by giving them more taxpayer dollars, as their founder Margaret Sanger demonstrated in her writings and speeches, as evidenced in their targeting of minority communities, and their sick practices involving the tissue of dead children.”
The funding for Planned Parenthood is just the latest example of a clash between Tennessee and the Biden administration. The Department of Justice sued the state over its law banning sex change procedures on children, and state lawmakers recently announced that they would look to reject federal education funding.
