Dear John,
Project 2025 embodies an agenda led by the Heritage Foundation to revise, reorganize and eliminate vast portions of the statutes, rules and norms that were built over decades, and that have guided our democracy and preserved our freedoms during Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Embodied in a 900-page document entitled “Mandate for Leadership – The Conservative Promise,” and developed in collaboration with more than 100 other organizations, Project 2025 would dramatically change both.
It is important to stress that recent changes in the Project’s leadership alter neither the document’s text nor the “Mandate for Leadership” that lies behind it. The president of the Heritage Foundation has made clear that the policy work has been completed as scheduled and their efforts to build a personnel apparatus to carry out this work at all levels of government continues.
All of us, and lawyers in particular, have a role to play in discussing with others the nature of the proposed changes and how they endanger our freedom. To facilitate those discussions, Lawyers Defending American Democracy is publishing a series of “Talking Points” that highlight changes Project 2025 is intent on making and their potential effect.
Each Talking Point will quote directly from a section of the document and explain its impact on our democracy, our freedom, and the rule of law. Please share this information widely with your friends, family, and colleagues in the upcoming months.
Eliminate Medicaid Funding for Planned Parenthood Health Care Services (Page 471-472)
“Policymakers should end taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood and all other abortion providers and redirect funding to health centers that provide real health care for women. The bulk of federal funding for Planned Parenthood comes through the Medicaid program. HHS should take two actions to limit this funding:
- Issue guidance reemphasizing that states are free to defund Planned Parenthood in their state Medicaid plans.
- Propose rulemaking to interpret the Medicaid statute to disqualify providers of elective abortion from the Medicaid program.
Why it Matters: Talking Points
This utterly deceptive proposal is based on the false premise that Planned Parenthood, the oldest and largest provider of family planning services in the nation, uses federal dollars to provide abortion services. Pursuant to the Hyde Amendment adopted initially in 1977, federal Medicaid funding does not cover abortions for its beneficiaries except in cases of incest, rape, or to save the life of the woman.
What Planned Parenthood does provide is a full range of health care services to women, including testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases and cervical cancers, sex education, and contraception. Its services are particularly critical in underserved rural and inner-city communities that have few providers. Yet Project 2025 apparently does not view these critical services as “real health care” for women.
Family planning services have been required in the federal/state Medicaid program since landmark Supreme Court decisions in 1967 and 1972 upholding the privacy rights of Americans to purchase and use contraception and have access to family planning services. Every state Medicaid program must cover family planning for its beneficiaries, as well as offer and assure freedom of choice of family planning providers and methods. The federal government provides a 90/10 federal match to each state to do so.
Under this deceptive proposal, Project 2025 seeks to destroy Planned Parenthood, thus depriving millions of women of needed family planning services based upon its false claims that the organization is receiving federal Medicaid funds for elective abortions.
Visit our website for more on our Project 2025 Talking Points Series.
Thank you for your dedication to maintaining our democracy. Please support our efforts by donating to LDAD and by sharing this email with your networks. As always, feel free to reach out to us at [email protected] if you may be interested in volunteering or if you wish to share your ideas.
Lawyers Defending American Democracy
