Bill Lee: “last week, the Trump administration proposed new rules to finally bring Federal policy back in line with Federal law.…”

“last week, the Trump administration proposed new rules to finally bring Federal policy back in line with Federal law. This should not be controversial in a republic committed to the rule of law. But this new policy touches the question of abortion, which tempts all three branches of our Federal Government to turn truth, justice, and the law inside out in the service of violence. President Trump, to his credit, is resisting those temptations and affirming what the law should do--affirming the fact that the law should do what the law says. The particular law in question is the Public Health Service Act. Every year, it allocates hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to public health centers across the country. Under the 1970 statute, no Public Health Service dollars ``shall be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning.'' That is, the bill was expressly written to fund healthcare for lower income communities, including family planning services, but not to fund or facilitate abortion, which, of course, is the opposite of healthcare. Yet in the 1980s, the General Accounting Office found that abortion providers were colocating their nonabortion and abortion-providing services and just keeping two different sets of books. This put patients, policymakers, and taxpayers in an impossible position. So regulations correcting this obvious abuse of the law were implemented; then they were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.…”