There’s more than one way to strip taxpayer funds from Planned Parenthood. Lawmakers are currently working behind the scenes to revise the country’s Title X Family Planning funding to prohibit these funds from going to any clinic where abortions are performed – which could cost the abortion giant millions in federal funding.

The Family Research Council (FRC) is reporting on efforts being made to rewrite Title X funding rules which would restore them to Reagan-era rules that prohibited these funds from going to any health care facility that performs abortion.

“Specifically, the current Clinton-era regulations require grantees to refer pregnant women for abortion and allow Title X clinics to co-locate with abortion clinics-in some cases utilizing the same waiting rooms, staff, and facilities,” wrote a group of 41 Senators to HHS chief Alex Azar on April 30.

“Title X programs which are co-located with abortion clinics or refer for abortion send a message that abortion is considered a method of family planning in federally-funded family planning programs, contrary to the law. We ask that you restore the regulations issued on February 2, 1988, which clarified that Title X programs may not promote, counsel, or refer clients for abortion or co-locate or combine family planning services with abortion activities. These rules required not only complete financial separation, but also physical separation of abortion activities from Title X service sites and separate personnel.”

In a separate letter, endorsed by 106 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, lawmakers said they believe “The separation between abortion and family planning has been weakened by permitting Title X clinics to be 'co-located' within the same facility as an entity that provides abortion. . . To ensure that the federally funded family planning services offered by Title X grant recipients are unquestionably separate and distinct from abortion, Title X service sites should be physically, as well as financially, separate from facilities that provide abortion.”

The good news is that the Reagan-era rules were upheld by the Supreme Court in Rust v. Sullivan in 1991 which means legal challenges to the rule would be difficult to wage.

“With a new set of regulations, the president could draw a bright line between abortion groups and true family planning programs,” explains FRC president Tony Perkins.

Although Planned Parenthood would still be able to take Title X funds, “they'd have to choose between dropping their abortion services from any location that gets Title X dollars and moving those abortion operations offsite. Either way, it could take away a significant bite out of the group's $80 million in family planning funds,” Perkins writes.

Efforts to defund Planned Parenthood have been thwarted time and time again, which is why the nation’s largest abortion provider will be able to sink another $30 million into mid-term campaigns with the hope of electing more pro-abortion lawmakers into purse-holding positions across the country. Hopefully, these rule changes will at least cut off some of their government-sponsored gravy train.

“We'll never know how much taxpayers have unwillingly propped up the group's killing machine -- but we know enough. A half-billion dollar investment into a group that thinks carving up tiny bodies is a great way to make a buck, or jokes about hitting the gym before snapping babies' necks, is an indefensible use of American money,” Perkins concludes.

“Conservatives will get another crack at Planned Parenthood's funding stream -- hopefully soon. Until then, the $80 million they get under Title X is a major step to the ultimate goal: ending taxpayers' forced partnership with abortion for good.”

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