The Week USA - 30.08.2019

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... and how they were covered NEWS 5

What happened

Seven major environmental groups, including

the Sierra Club, sued the Trump administra-

tion this week over new rules for enforcing

the Endangered Species Act. The groups say

the changes will gut the landmark law, which

protects 1,663 imperiled animal and plant spe-

cies. Under the new guidelines, species that are

designated as “threatened” will no longer get

the same protections as those deemed “endan-

gered,” though species already on the “threat-

ened” list will be exempt from the changes.

Officials will be barred from protecting habitats

of threatened species unless they can “reasonably determine” that

environmental damage is “likely,” phrasing meant to prevent regula-

tors from anticipating the effects of climate change. And, for the

first time, officials will be allowed to calculate economic impacts of

protecting a species, a move supported by some business groups.

Conservationists, however, fear the changes will clear the way for

mining, drilling, and other development in precious areas, ignoring

the lessons of the law’s success since its bipartisan passage in 1973.

The act is credited with saving the bald eagle, which was removed

from the threatened list in 2007, as well as the humpback whale,

grizzly bear, peregrine falcon, and American alligator. Several

states, including California and Massachusetts, have also promised

to file suit to block the administration’s changes.

What the columnists said

“Polar bears, spotted owls, and other species” have nothing to fear,

said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. Essential parts of the

Endangered Species Act are untouched, but

the rest desperately needed fixes. The law had

become a “weapon to strip property rights and

block millions of acres of private development.”

Rules were manipulated to get species listed that

aren’t at risk and to “move the goalposts” when

a population recovered. This overly celebrated

law “has achieved far less than advertised,” and

about half of the 55 species it helped recover

“were mistakenly listed in the first place.”

Nonsense—the enormous success of this law is

so clear that it’s been emulated throughout the

world, said Carl Safina in The New York Times. An estimated 99

percent of listed species have avoided extinction, which is the only

metric that matters. Take the California condor: There were 20 or

so remaining in the 1980s, and now the “1,000th condor” under su-

pervision recently hatched. “When we make the effort, saving species

works.” This used to be a nonpartisan issue: It was President Nixon

who signed the endangered-species protections in 1973, saying that

“nothing is more priceless and more worthy of preservation.”

The world is experiencing “the highest rate of extinction since

the loss of the dinosaurs,” said Ron Magill in the Miami Herald.

Weeks before the Trump administration proposed these changes,

the United Nations reported that up to 1 million species face

extinction. Now is the worst possible time to begin considering the

“cost” of conservation. Extinctions, even of something like “a tiny

fish that feeds on mosquito larvae,” ripple across our ecosystem.

When we lose such a species, “all the money in the world will not

be able” to bring it back.

The red wolf, native to the southeast U.S.

Legal battle over the Endangered Species Act

What happened

Planned Parenthood announced this week that it was withdraw-

ing from a federal family-planning program that funds health

care for poor women, rather than comply with a new Trump

administration rule that bars participating clinics from telling

patients where and how they can get an abortion. The group

receives some $60 million a year through the program, Title X,

which Planned Parenthood uses to provide 1.5 million women

each year with services such as contraception and pregnancy

tests, as well as screenings for sexually transmitted diseases and

cervical and breast cancer. Planned Parenthood’s acting presi-

dent, Alexis McGill Johnson, said the group had no choice but to

opt out of Title X because of the “unethical” new rule. “Our pa-

tients deserve to make their own health-care decisions,” McGill

Johnson said, “not to be forced to have Donald Trump or Mike

Pence make those decisions for them.”

The implementation of the new Title X rule was cheered by anti-

abortion groups. “It is a long-awaited victory that will energize the

pro-life grass roots,” said Jeanne Mancini, president of the March

for Life. The impact of Planned Parenthood’s exit from Title X will

vary across the country: Some states, including Illinois and Ver-

mont, have said they will make up the shortfall. But in Utah, where

Planned Parenthood is the only Title X provider, and Minnesota,

where it serves 90 percent of Title X recipients, cutbacks could

mean low-income women will face long waits for appointments.

Some, the group says, might opt to go without any care at all.

What the columnists said

Planned Parenthood insists Trump is forcing them from Title X,

said Tiana Lowe in WashingtonExaminer.com. “This is a lie.”

All this new rule does is tighten “the flow of public funds away

from any actual abortions—as federal law requires.” And any

woman wanting an abortion can easily check online and find

a provider; they don’t need Planned Parenthood to do that for

them. Unfortunately, the group has chosen “to satisfy the whims

of abortion activists over the health of women seeking care.”

No respectable medical provider would obey this “gag rule,” said

Melissa Gira Grant in NewRepublic.com. Now Planned Parent-

hood clinics across the country will on average lose 19 percent of

their funding, and millions of poor Americans will lose access to

vital services. If you want to know what will happen next, “Texas

provides a disturbing preview.” After the state clamped down on

family-planning funds in 2011, long-acting contraceptive use fell

by 35 percent and Medicaid-covered births jumped 27 percent.

Planned Parenthood’s withdrawal will “help the president cement

his popularity with abortion opponents ahead of 2020,” said

Paige Winfield Cunningham in The Washington Post. Before the

2016 election, Trump won that constituency by promising, among

other things, to name pro-life judges to the Supreme Court and

defund Planned Parenthood. He gave them Justices Gorsuch and

Kavanaugh; now “he’s checked off the ‘defunding’ box.” That will

convince conservative pro-lifers that Trump is a good bet, again.

Planned Parenthood rejects federal funding over ‘gag rule’