Ron Reigns:
Welcome and thank you for joining us on Birth Mother Matters in Adoption with Kelly Rourke-Scarry and me, Ron Reigns, where we delve into the issues of adoption from every angle of the adoption triad.

Speaker 2:
Do what’s best for your kid, and for yourself, because if you can’t take care of yourself, you’re definitely not going to be able to take care of that kid, and that’s not fair.

Speaker 3:
And I know that my daughter will be well taken care of with them.

Speaker 4:
Don’t have an abortion. Give this child a chance.

Speaker 5:
All I could think about was needing to save my son.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
My name is Kelly Rourke-Scarry. I’m the Executive Director, President and co-founder of Building Arizona Families Adoption Agency, The Donna K. Evans Foundation, and creator of the You Before Me campaign. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Family Studies and Human Development and a Master’s degree in Education with an emphasis in school counseling. I was adopted at the age of three days, born to a teen birth mother, raised in a closed adoption, and reunited with my birth mother in 2007. I have worked in the adoption field for over 15 years.

Ron Reigns:
And I’m Ron Reigns. I’ve worked in radio since 1999. I was the co-host of two successful morning shows in Prescott, Arizona. Now I work for my wife who’s an adoption attorney, and I’m able to combine these two great passions and share them on this podcast.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
So today we’re going to be talking about abortion and about the Title X “gag rule.” And I will openly and honestly say first reading this, I thought it said Title X. I think that’s funny. I’m going to share it to everybody, so if you see Title X-

Ron Reigns:
That means Title 10.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
That means Title 10.

Ron Reigns:
Right. So, if you hear like on a radio show or on the news or whatever somebody say Title 10, that also means Title X if you read it.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Correct.

Ron Reigns:
Okay.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
First and foremost, Title X is not a gag rule. It is referred to by people who are proponents of the option of abortion as a gag rule. The Title X Program is a pool of federal funds dedicated to ensuring access to family planning and other preventative health services like birth control, screening for sexually transmitted infections, breast and cervical cancer screening, family planning counseling, and other reproductive health services.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
In 2019, according to the Congressional Research Service over 286 million was designated for Title X use. That’s a lot of money.

Ron Reigns:
Yeah.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
That is a lot, lot of money. The amount of money, the 286.5 million, which is down from 317.5 million in 2010, these funds are not to be used for abortion services.

Ron Reigns:
Okay. I had a brother-in-law who was very heavily into drugs for a time, and he got a lot of money from my mother-in-law, and from me and my wife. And he always said, “I’m not using that money for drugs.” And he wasn’t, technically speaking. He was getting that money and paying for other things so that the money that he had at the time he could use on drugs. So essentially it was being used for drugs. And when you say, “Oh, well, they’re not putting this money towards abortions.” But they’re putting it towards other things so that they can fund abortions with their “other money.”

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Money laundering in some aspects?

Ron Reigns:
I think it is. I think it is.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
This is where I think that this podcast can help educate and shed light because this is a little confusing. When you’re reading through the data and you’re trying to understand, it is important to know what is factual and true versus what is not.

Ron Reigns:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Clinics in the United States that provide family planning can apply for these Title X grants, which allow them to offer services to patients on a sliding income-based scale.

Ron Reigns:
Okay.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
In 2017, 3.6 million people were financially assisted by Title X subsidies. That is a lot of people, receiving a lot of these grants. A total of four million Americans obtained services at clinics receiving Title X grants. This number is higher than the number who received subsidies because people with Medicaid and other forms of public and private insurance also visit Title X clinics. This funding source is geared to help for family planning services. I think any Joe the plumber, anybody on the street would state that an abortion would not fall under the category of family planning.

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
You almost laughed at that. The look on your face was like-

Ron Reigns:
Well, duh.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yeah. Totally appropriate. Yeah, absolutely. This rule that they’re talking about is not gagging anybody. I want to say that again. The rule that President Trump has enforced is that there is financial and physical separation between facilities or programs that provide any kind of health service using Title X funds and those that provide abortions. What they’re saying, and in a way to explain this, is if you are a physical therapist, and you have a doctorate degree, and you want x-rays on your leg. They don’t want you to have an x-ray facility at your location-

Ron Reigns:
On the premises.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Correct. That you can just have your patients, so it’s like fishing in a koi pond, as we’ve used that term before. It’s like there’s a little pond with a lot of fish, so as your clients come in, “Oh, you need an x-ray. Let me go ahead and get funds from you here.”

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
So in order to prevent that from happening, that is what this rule that President Trump has enforced is to do. The rule does state that providers are allowed to give abortion referrals in cases of medical emergencies. So, there is a caveat.

Ron Reigns:
Right. When it’s the mother’s health that is at risk, like physical health.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Correct.

Ron Reigns:
Okay.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
So the reason there’s this uproar over this rule is because it is forcing providers to either stop providing abortions, or stop receiving services, and stop receiving services.

Ron Reigns:
Funds, right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Funds. Right. I’m sorry, yeah. Let’s go back.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Okay, so if they receive Title X funds, they cannot provide or refer for abortions.

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
If they take, because it’s meant for family planning, and again, as we stated.

Ron Reigns:
It’s kind of the opposite of family planning.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Correct. Unplanning.

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
On August 19th, 2019, all Title X grantees were required to certify their good faith intent to comply with President Trump’s administrations, in parentheticals, gag rule which again, it’s not a gag rule. It’s not preventing them-

Ron Reigns:
It’s a nifty name for them to make it sound really bad.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yes. So, this good faith in intent basically has mandated that providers have to cease and desist with referrals to abortions or provide them on their facility that’s correct.

Ron Reigns:
Okay.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
The new rule admits that both the Title X program and Congress agree that the information and discussion between any healthcare provider and patient is counseling, as long as it is non-directive. So, what they’re saying is, is that they want patients to have all the information, but they don’t want them to refer them. So in other words, does this mean that they can never say the word abortion? No, it doesn’t. It just means that they can’t say, “Okay, so you want to get an abortion. Let me go ahead and write up a script so you can get the medical pill and move on with your life and not think about this anymore.” And they cannot do that.

Ron Reigns:
They can’t encourage it, essentially.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
That is correct. And they can’t recommend it.

Ron Reigns:
Okay.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
So the questions that that derives is, is abortion actually family planning, if it is after the pregnancy has started? My inclination and answer would be no.

Ron Reigns:
Is no.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Do the restrictions placed on Title X and tend to define abortion not as family planning, but as pregnancy termination? Again, we’re playing Scrabble with words, we’re not-

Ron Reigns:
It’s semantics.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
It is Tomato, tomato. Let’s find a loophole so that we can still receive those funds and still-

Ron Reigns:
And still guide you toward-

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yes.

Ron Reigns:
Abortion.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
The rule that President Trump enacted permits the patient to ask questions, and expects that those questions to be answered. And one thing that I really, really want to put out there is so that everybody understands that Title X only takes abortion out of the umbrella of family planning. It wasn’t family planning to begin with.

Ron Reigns:
No. But I think those who are “pro-life” or “pro-abortion”, I think they’re trying to incrementally?

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Do you mean “pro-choice?”

Ron Reigns:
Yes, that’s what I mean.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
So many pros.

Ron Reigns:
I know it. My head is swimming from some of this.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Oh no, no. Mine as well, mine as well.

Ron Reigns:
But some of those on the “pro-choice”, pro-abortion side are trying to incrementally change things to where it’s like, “Okay, we we’ll get a little bit here. We’ll get a little bit there.”

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
If we call it something different, we can go in this store and if we use the word fetus and not baby, then we’ll kind of be able to navigate in those waters.

Ron Reigns:
And I’m sure, you remember back in maybe the ’90s, even back to the ’80s, when they would say that abortion should be safe, legal and rare.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yes, I do.

Ron Reigns:
That line isn’t being stated anymore.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
No.

Ron Reigns:
Now it’s getting to where it’s abortion on demand.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
No. And I remember when I was in college, we used to have a lot of pro-life people with signs of babies that had been aborted, and they would hold up the signs and this was really common. And the pro-choice side was horrified and thought, “We don’t want to see those. You need to take those down. Those are offensive to look at.”

Ron Reigns:
Right. You can’t have your freedom of speech to show that because it’s in a public square.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Right.

Ron Reigns:
And people might choose against abortion.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Right.

Ron Reigns:
Who knows?

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Because it’s, again, education. One big question that kind of arrives on the heels of all this is Planned Parenthood is the biggest entity for providing abortions. And since this rule, brought in by President Trump, Planned Parenthood has discontinued receiving the Title X funding.

Ron Reigns:
Voluntarily. Is that correct?

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Voluntarily. That is correct. And so that’s huge. Planned Parenthood stated in their report, it served about 40% of patients, many of them African-American and Hispanic, and they absolutely withdrew because they want the right to continue to be able to provide abortions.

Ron Reigns:
Abortions onsite.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
That’s correct.

Ron Reigns:
And direct people toward that.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
That is correct.

Ron Reigns:
It kind of shows where their heads are at. What their priorities are.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Unfortunately.

Ron Reigns:
It’s getting this money to help people who are lower income and the poor. It’s, “We’re here to provide abortions whenever and wherever we can.”

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
There’s been a lot of debate. I know the movie Unplanned came out, and I know we both talked about that in a previous podcast as well.

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
I’m not endorsing anything that was said in the movie, or not, not endorsing it. I’m just saying that it really sheds a lot of light on what may be. I think is the safest way to say that. Planned Parenthood is stating that it will continue to participate in Medicaid, the federal health coverage program for low-income Americans. That is Planned Parenthood’s biggest source of government funding, which is about 400 million or more annually in recent years. Again, I’m kind of speechless on this because I think when the government is saying, “I want to protect the interests of those that don’t have a voice.” Meaning the babies, the unborn babies, and this enormous gigantic entity is stating that if they don’t have the right and the ability to continue to provide a service that is in direct contradiction from what our President is stating, that they will no longer receive these funds.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
The white house released a statement back in May of 2018 for this proposal. And obviously it did go through. I think that as we go further into 2020, and as we see, there’s lots of changes in the abortion world right now. There’s lots of new laws that are being proposed and there’s pending hearings.

Ron Reigns:
Yeah. It seems there’s been more activity in the last year or two than there had been in the previous 20 almost.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Agreed.

Ron Reigns:
Yeah.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And I think that we’re going to see that more and more. I think this is probably going to be a huge, debatable topic, more so than in the past. As the elections get closer and closer, I think that we are really going to go from the people who are kind of in the closet about where they stand on abortion to they’re going to come out and have a voice. I hear the statement over and over again. I’m really not pro-abortion. I just want the women who have been raped or victimized to be able to have an option to not have to carry the pregnancy.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Again, when we say that we are desensitizing ourselves to what we’re really talking about. I think it’s important to recognize and understand, again, we’re talking about babies.

Ron Reigns:
Human lives.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
We’re not talking about even eagles’ eggs. So, we have the wherewithal, and the compassion, and the drive, and the stamina, and the resources, to protect these unborn eagles, but our own children we don’t? As a society, what does that say? As a nation? What are we doing to future generations? And I think that the more people become educated, and the more they really understand what Title X means and what it offers and what the goal of it is, President Trump’s rule is a good rule. In my opinion, it’s just enforcing the obvious.

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Abortion is not family planning. The fact that our President had to go and line by line stipulate that.

Ron Reigns:
It’s heartbreaking that it got to that point.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yes, this is where we are. And so, being that this is where we are, I think my biggest hope and my biggest wish out of this podcast is that people will take what we’ve said here and start doing their own research and start educating themselves.

Ron Reigns:
And find out? Is this a gag rule?

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Right.

Ron Reigns:
Are they being stopped from saying things?

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And educate those around you.

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
When somebody comes up and says, “Hey, I’m pro-choice, or I’m this, or I’m that.” Talk to them. Ask them why? Ask them have they ever talked with somebody who’s had an abortion? Have they ever had one themselves? Again, we don’t judge. At all. We want to prevent them from happening now. We can’t do anything about the past.

Ron Reigns:
No.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
But we can do something now. And that’s what our goal is. And always has been. Going from here I really hope that we can make a difference, and every person that becomes more educated is one more person less likely to have an abortion, and one more baby to have a life.

Ron Reigns:
We have a pregnancy crisis hotline available 24/7 by phone or text at (623)-695-4112, or you can call our toll-free number 1-800-340-9665. We can make an immediate appointment with you to get you to a safe place, provide food and clothing and started on creating an Arizona adoption plan or give you more information. You can check out our blogs on our website at azpregnancyhelp.com. Thank you for joining us on Birth Mother Matters in Adoption, written and produced by Kelly Rourke-Scarry, and edited by me, Ron Reigns. If you enjoyed this podcast rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts, and as always thanks to Grapes for letting us use their song I Dunno as our theme song. Join us next time for Birth Mother Matters in Adoption. For Kelly Rourke- Scarry, I’m Ron Reigns, and we’ll see you then.