But what about Ivanka? In the latest rebuke to the idea that Donald Trump’s favorite child has principles and/or influence over her father, Trump signed a law targeting Planned Parenthood funding on Thursday:
The measure nullifies a rule finalized in the last days of the Obama administration that effectively barred state and local governments from withholding federal funding for family planning services related to contraception, sexually transmitted infections, fertility, pregnancy care, and breast and cervical cancer screening from qualified health providers — regardless of whether they also performed abortions. The new measure cleared Congress last month with Vice President Mike Pence casting the tiebreaking vote in the Senate.
The previous Department of Health and Human Services regulation, which took effect two days before Mr. Trump’s inauguration, said that states and localities could not withhold money from a provider for any reason other than an inability to provide family planning services.
It’s official: “Can they provide quality health care?” is not the most important question the government wants asked about the health care providers its money is going to. No doubt the creepy grin Mike Pence sported as he broke the tie on Senate passage of this bill is back in full force as he thinks about limiting contraceptive care and screening for sexually transmitted infections, but most of all about sticking it to Planned Parenthood and the low-income women it serves.
And that’s why we have to keep fighting, from the local level fights like the one to elect Heath Mello as mayor in Omaha, Nebraska, to starting—seat by seat—to win back Congress by electing Jon Ossoff in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District. We’re fighting for the health care itself and for the basic principle that quality of care matters. We’re fighting, at the most basic level, because Republicans are chipping away at every way the government works for people who can’t afford to buy memberships at Mar-a-Lago, and that’s wrong.
Sign up to make calls to get out the vote for Jon Ossoff here.