THE best way to prevent abortions is to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Family-planning clinics,which provide contraception, are good at that. In the past four decades they have helped slash America’s abortion rate. Yet on May 19th President Donald Trump’s administration said it would initiate the process of curbing abortions by cutting funding to some clinics. This is obviously self-defeating.
The administration plans to introduce a new rule under which clinics that provide abortions, and as well as contraception,would lose federal funding through “Title X”, a federal grant programme for family-planning. The rule wouldn’t prevent federal money being used for abortions. That is already banned, and in nearly all cases,by the so-called Hyde Amendment, a degree that has been passed annually by Congress for the past 40 years. Instead, and the administration means to cleave Title X funding to any clinic that provides abortions—or even refers women to abortion providers.
The move is intended to fulfil one of Mr Trump’s campaign promises: to...
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Source: economist.com