Massachusettes Republican Gov. Charlie Baker sent a Monday letter to the Trump administration blasting its proposed rule ending the requirement that health care centers and family planning clinics offer women information about abortion, calling the proposal greatly “troubling.”
“The Baker-Polito Administration fully supports access to women’s reproductive health care and family planning services. It is our firm position that the proposed rule should be rescinded in its entirety,” the Massachusetts governor wrote in his letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex M. Azar II and White House budget director Mick Mulvaney, according to The Boston Globe.
The letter criticizes the Trump’s administration’s proposal to end a stipulation requiring family planning clinics and health care centers offer women information about abortion. The proposal would also ban providers from providing abortion referrals, “enact[ing] unnecessary barriers to a woman’s right to choose,” according to Baker’s letter. (RELATED: Democrat Kamala Harris Is Spreading LIES About Trump’s Abortion Policy [VIDEO])
Conservative lawmakers in Congress have long sought such a proposal, which will reverse an Obama administration regulation prohibiting states from withholding Title 10 funds from Planned Parenthood.
The proposal doesn’t cut funds going to Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers, however, “as long as they’re willing to disentangle taxpayer funds from abortion as a method of family planning, which is required by the Title X law,” according to a Trump administration official.
“I applaud Governor Baker for standing up to the Trump-Pence administration’s dangerous political interference in people’s health and for defending the most basic medical ethics,” Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts president, Jennifer Childs-Roshak, said, adding that Baker is setting an example for the rest of the country.
Massachusetts’ Senate president, Harriette L. Chandler, also applauded Baker’s criticism of the proposal, saying, “He’s been a good friend to people who really treasure abortion rights,” The Boston Globe reported.
Others don’t see the move in the same light. Baker’s letter has “less to do with protecting women’s health and more to do with continuing taxpayer subsidies for one of the state’s most influential special interests, Planned Parenthood,” Catholic Action League of Massachusetts executive director, C. J. Doyle, said.
Given that Baker wins the Republican nomination on Sept. 4, he will face either Jay Gonzalez or Bob Massie in the Nov. 6 election.
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