21 AGs warn Becerra of lawsuit over Biden’s plan to force taxpayers to pay for abortions

By Bob Unruh

Xavier Becerra (Video screenshot)

Attorneys general from multiple states have dispatched a letter to the radically pro-abortion Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, warning him of a coming lawsuit if the Biden administration moves forward on its demand that taxpayers give money to abortionists.

The letter was signed by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, and he was joined by his counterparts from Alabama, Louisiana, Alaska, Mississippi, Arizona, Missouri, Arkansas, Montana, Florida, Nebraska, Georgia, Oklahoma, Idaho, South Carolina, Indiana, Tennessee, Kansas, Texas, Kentucky and West Virginia.

The letter demolishes a proposed rule change to the Title X family funding program because it would give abortionists access to millions of tax dollars, in violation of the law’s own precedents.

“Title X reflects a compromise. It funds services that large numbers of Americans support while withholding that funding from services that large numbers oppose,” the letter says. “The Proposed Rule tramples that compromise, by intertwining family-planning services with the divisive issue of publicly funded abortions.”

Further, the AGs suggest the change could violate anti-discrimination laws.

The proposal from Biden to change the Title X practices would destroy the progress made under the Trump administration, which required recipients of funding to keep a physical separation between abortion industry activities and “family planning.”

Becerra, whose extremism on abortion peaked when he prosecuted undercover journalists while he was in California’s government for uncovering the abortion industry’s dealings in the body parts of unborn babies, recently – and stunningly – claimed there is “no law that deals specifically with the term ‘partial birth abortion.'”

In fact, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 was adopted by Congress while Becerra was there. He voted against it.

And the U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to take up a fight over a Missouri law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, which could open the door to significant changes in the Roe v. Wade precedent from 1973, which essentially allows abortion at any time for any reason.

Leftists are fearful of what the court could determine, with three justices on the bench who were appointed by President Trump and known for their dedication to the Constitution as written, not as a “living” document ready to be re-written to meet social demands.

The Daily Wire noted Biden wants to remove Trump’s requirement that those who get federal money have separate abortion services and family planning outreaches.

That’s because money is fungible, and giving it to an abortion clinic for “family planning” could very well fund utilities and other costs in a way that financially benefits abortion business dealings.

The letter points out that Biden’s plan is not based on public health, but on the idea of giving abortionists “freer rein” with taxpayer dollars.

“In a country of more than 300 million people, no one gets his way or her way all the time,” the letter explains. “Everyone has to compromise a bit.”

The letter constituted the officials’ comments on Biden’s proposed rule, which would turn tax funds over to abortionists.

It explains the background: “Congress enacted Title X in 1970, a few years before the U.S. Supreme Court created a national right to abortion. So, while many states had loosened their abortion laws, many others still restricted the practice as a crime, with limited exceptions. The states and citizens taking that view surely would not have supported family-planning funding that even indirectly supported, or stamped a national imprimatur on, a practice they regarded as criminal.”

In fact, the principal sponsor of the Title X law, Congressman John D. Dingell, said, “I support the legislation before this body. I set forth in my extended remarks the reasons why I offered the amendment which prohibited abortion as a method of family planning … With the ‘prohibition of abortion’ amendment – Title X, section 1008 – the committee members clearly intend that abortion is not to be encouraged or promoted in any way through this legislation. Programs which include abortion as a method of family planning are not eligible for funds allocated through this act.”

The result, courts have concluded, is that Title X funds cannot be used at businesses that make abortion referrals. And they cannot be used for a program that “is located in an abortion-providing facility.”

The letter said, “The department cannot deviate from the best reading of the text when it does so to circumvent the statutory provision. And its reasons for deviating from the best reading could not be clearer: the department, knowing that it cannot expressly subsidize abortion, plans to do so indirectly by putting Title X services and abortion services in the same place. Courts reviewing administrative actions are ‘not required to exhibit a naiveté from which ordinary citizens are free.’ And when the time comes to review this rule, if it is finalized, they will not.”

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Bob Unruh

Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially. Read more of Bob Unruh's articles here.


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