There is no question about the Biden administration’s harsh actions against people of faith. It is using every weapon in its arsenal to marginalize and attack anti-abortion Americans, most recently by withholding taxpayer dollars from states that refuse to use the money to fund abortions.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) awarded $4.5 million this year to the Oklahoma State Department of Health (OSDH) to spend on “family planning services,” a sum it quickly rescinded after OSDH chose not to spend the Title X grant on abortion.
The decision to cancel the grant is more evidence that the administration has little concern for Americans’ health and well-being, instead prioritizing its radical abortion agenda, even in states where the people have chosen through the democratic process to protect the unborn.
The most startling part of the administration’s decision is that it’s out of step with its very own federal parameters under Title X. Each year since 1976, Congress has reaffirmed that Title X funds “shall not be expended for abortions,” but should instead be directed toward pregnancy prevention, testing, and for screenings as well as disease treatment and counseling.
Moreover, the Weldon Amendment clearly states that the government can’t discriminate against grantees “on the basis that the health care entity does not provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.”
But that is precisely what Biden’s HHS is doing.
Oklahoma law itself limits the use of taxpayer funds to prenatal and postnatal services that “provide health care services for pregnant women, decrease infant mortality and facilitate the birth of a live child.” The state’s statutes clearly indicate that “health care services [do] not include abortion, abortion referral, or abortion counseling.”
But the law is of no concern to an administration hellbent on extending generosity to its political allies while imposing its life-ending ideology on people who disagree and simply want effective, affordable and ethical health care.
Thankfully, some lawmakers have noticed and are refusing to let HHS off the hook for its reprehensible actions. Oklahoma Republican Sens. James Lankford and Markwayne Mullin and Reps. Josh Brecheen, Stephanie Bice, Kevin Hern, Frank Lucas, and Tom Cole delivered a letter to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra demanding that he reinstate the grant.
HHS has a long history of discriminatory behavior against religious health care providers in particular. HHS recently threatened to deny federal funds to St. Francis Health System, a Catholic hospital system in Oklahoma and one of the nation’s largest hospital networks in the country, purportedly for maintaining a lit sanctuary candle by the hospital’s chapel altar, in keeping with Catholic practice. The local fire marshal and government had already provided their approval of the candle. This strongly suggests that the administration’s intention in intervening had more to do with inserting politics into faith-based health care than it did with protecting patients from any genuine fire hazard.
The Biden administration seems to want to purge religious people from the health care space. Time and again, HHS has imposed new rules and regulations nullifying religious exemptions and forcing objecting doctors, nurses and other medical professionals to perform medical procedures that violate their beliefs, including gender-transition surgeries.
Suspension of Title X funding in Oklahoma is simply HHS’s latest shameless attempt to create barriers for families who want life-affirming care, especially underserved families who rely on government funding to receive it.
Chris Faddis is president of Solidarity HealthShare.