Getting the Abortion Funding Story Wrong

Yuval Levin explains below that the new Trump-administration policy allows federal family planning funds to go to organizations that provide counseling about abortion. Some media accounts have gotten this point badly wrong.

AP is running an article by two reporters, Jill Colvin and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, headlined, “Rule would take US funds from clinics discussing abortion.” Nope. First line: “The Trump administration will resurrect a Reagan-era rule that would ban federally-funded family planning clinics from discussing abortion with women, or sharing space with abortion providers.” The part after the comma is right, but not the part before it.

At Reason, Elizabeth Nolan Brown claims, “Now the Trump administration may cut off any group that so much as talks about abortion.” She continues, linking to the mistaken AP story, “On Friday, Donald Trump is expected to announce plans to resurrect an old rule prohibiting federal grant money from going to any group that even discusses abortion as an option for pregnant women.” Oddly, she also links to an NBC story by Jonathan Allen that reports this point accurately: The new rule “will stop short of giving abortion foes one provision they sought: a gag rule prohibiting recipients from discussing abortion with pregnant women.”

I suspect the false version of this story is going to spread.