By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--March 31, 2017
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The Obama administration finalized the rule just a few weeks before President Donald Trump was inaugurated. It would bar states from denying federal family planning funds to organizations like Planned Parenthood that also perform abortions. The rule said that a state cannot deny funding to clinics for reasons unrelated to their ability to provide basic family planning services. Although abortion is a legal medical procedure, federal dollars cannot be used to pay for it, except in restricted circumstances. The Republican-led Congress is now trying to reverse the rule using the Congressional Review Act, which lets lawmakers undo regulations enacted in the last months of the Obama administration with a majority vote. The House passed its version of the measure in February.The measure is certainly welcome in that it returns to the states the discretion to deny Planned Parenthood funding on the basis of it performing abortions. This was not a piece of legislation Obama signed, but rather an administrative rule he pushed through in the final weeks of his administration. The Congressional Review Act gives Congress the discretion to invalidate such rules by legislation.
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