Here are 8 Things to Know about the White House’s Decision to Cut Abortion Funding

8. Will this regulation force Planned Parenthood to choose between receiving Title X funding and performing abortions?

Not necessarily, but this new regulation does require a “disentanglement” of funding. Planned Parenthood and other Title X clinics would need to change the way they operate and possibly reorganize their legal structures in order to comply with the new regulation. But since the Reagan-era, technology and other regulations have made it much easier for organizations like Planned Parenthood to comply with the rule in a way that allows them to continue to perform abortions and still receive Title X grants.

The increase of medical abortions (i.e., using drugs such as Mifepruex to induce abortion) has reduced both the number of personnel and the type of facilities needed for Planned Parenthood to conduct abortion. For example, four states allow women the ability to speak with a doctor from their own home and to receive their medications by mail. Some other states use a form of telemedicine abortion called “the Iowa model.” As Eric Wicklund explains,

Current FDA rules restrict the drug – also known as Mifepruex – to clinical settings, specifically excluding pharmacies, so that it can’t be prescribed or mailed. That has given rise to a form of telemedicine abortion called “the Iowa model,” in which the patient visits a clinic and consults via telemedicine with a clinician…