Just weeks after losing its funding from the state, the North Carolina affiliate of Planned Parenthood announced that it has received a $426,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Lawmakers overrode a veto three weeks ago from Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue on a budget that cut funds from the women's health organization. The cuts threatened to shut down the Durham, N.C. clinic but, with the announcement of the new grant money, that move can be avoided.
The grants come under the Title X program, which allows family planning providers to offer subsidized preventive health care such as annual exams, birth control, cancer screening and STD detection and prevention to low-income women, men and teenagers who would otherwise have no care.
"Given all the attacks we’ve weathered on women’s access to health care in North Carolina over the last two years, we are thrilled now to be focused on expanding care to our patients", said Janet Colm, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina (PPCNC). PPCNC has been a Title X recipient since 2001.
Title X grants were also awarded to other states that cut funding to Planned Parenthood, including New Jersey and Tennessee.
Republican lawmakers were not thrilled with the federal government's action. Rep. Nelson Dollar (R-Cary) told The Asheville Citizen-Times that the Obama administration was playing politics with taxpayer money. Planned Parenthood insists that, since no clinical abortions are performed at their Durham clinic, none of the grant money will be used for those services.
You can read the full story in The Asheville Citizen-Times.
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