NY mayor says city will fund abortions if Trump defunds Planned Parenthood

Jardine Malado Friday, December 09, 2016

Featured in the image is Bill DeBlasio in 2013 | Wikimedia Commons/Thomas Altfather Good

New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio has vowed that the city will pay for abortions if President-elect Donald Trump moves ahead with his plan to defund Planned Parenthood.

In a speech at the Cooper Union on Monday, DeBlasio promised to push back against Trump over certain domestic policies that would affect New York City. One of the policies that he railed against was the plan to cut federal funding to the abortion provider.

"If there are threats to federal funding for Planned Parenthood in New York City, we will ensure women receive health care they need," the mayor said, as reported by Politico.

The city currently provides about $850,000 a year to the central Planned Parenthood branch in New York through grants. The organization also receives between $75,000 and $400,000 from the city annually in capital grants.

When asked whether the city would offset the federal cuts to the budget for the abortion provider, DeBlasio press secretary Eric Phillips replied: "It depends on the nature of any cut. What the mayor committed to is protecting the care Planned Parenthood provides."

"The threat is very real, but it's also theoretical, so it's impossible to forecast the nature of any required City involvement," Phillips continued.

Federal aid accounted for about $9 million of Planned Parenthood's $44 million budget in 2015.

Trump has repeatedly promised to defund the abortion giant as long as it continues to perform abortions. In an interview with CNN in August 2015, he referred to Planned Parenthood as an "abortion factory" and said that it should be defunded.

"The biggest problem I have with Planned Parenthood is the abortion situation. I mean its like an abortion factory, frankly, and you can't have it and you shouldn't be funding it. It shouldn't be funded by the government," he said.

The 2013 figures released recently by the Center for Disease Control indicated that the abortion rate in New York City is 60 percent of its birth rate. The city reported 69,840 abortions and 116,777 registered births in 2013. The abortion rate in other states reached no more than 30 percent of its birth rate.