Governor says issue shouldn’t be “political.”
The Virginia League for Planned Parenthood received extra funds from the federal government that it will give to a Tennessee and North Mississippi group for pregnancy services, a move that raised the hackles of Gov. Bill Lee and TennesseeRight to Life.
About $3.9 million for low-cost birth control, contraceptive counsel, sexually-transmitted disease treatment, breast and cervical cancer screenings, pre-pregnancy care and other treatment will go to Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi. The move comes after Tennessee declined to meet federal Title X grant requirements and provide accurate and accessible medical care, including counseling for abortion, according to the Virginia League for Planned Parenthood.
Tennessee has received up to $7.5 million for those services. But the state Legislature outlawed abortion a year ago when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, then passed a law this year allowing abortions only in limited circumstances to save the lives of women involved in dangerous pregnancies.
Ashley Coffield, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi, said, “Victory is rare in Tennessee” but noted the group is celebrating the “return of nonjudgmental access to Title X programs.”
“Our governor jeopardized access to birth control, STI testing and treatment and cancer screenings when he refused to comply with Title X requirements for unbiased patient information,” Coffield said in a statement this week.
The shifting of funds to Tennessee and Mississippi through Virginia upset Right to Life and Lee the same week as Senate and House leaders created a study group to look into rejecting about $1.89 billion in federal education money.
Tennessee Right to Life, which lobbied against abortions for rape victims and most cases in which a pregnant woman’s life is in danger, characterized the federal move as “retaliation” for the state’s “strong pro-life law.”
“The Biden Administration is in cahoots with the largest abortion business in the world,” Tennessee Right to Life President Stacy Dunn said. Her husband, former Rep. Bill Dunn, a proponent of the governor’s education voucher program, was hired to work for the Department of Education after leaving the Legislature.
Even though Title X money can’t be used for abortion services, the money will be directed to promote “the deadly agenda of the abortion industry,” Stacy Dunn said.
Lee two weeks ago announced $200 million worth of grants to community organizations, including crisis pregnancy centers, which counsel women against abortion.
The governor told reporters this week the state approved more funding for pregnancy services than Title X was providing after the federal government cut off the money.
“The federal government has now funneled those dollars that were coming to our state into political agencies, frankly, and this is an issue that ought to rise above politics. I think it’s the wrong decision,” Lee said.
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Sam Stockard is a veteran Tennessee reporter and editor, having written for the Daily News Journal in Murfreesboro, where he served as lead editor when the paper won an award for being the state’s best Sunday newspaper two years in a row. He has led the Capitol Hill bureau for The Daily Memphian. His awards include Best Single Editorial from the Tennessee Press Association.
This article in this post was originally published on Tennessee Lookout and parts of it are included here under a Creative Commons license CC BY-ND 4.0
