Variety Forgoes Emmy Party to Donate Funds to Planned Parenthood
Variety magazine announced Wednesday that it will forgo its annual party for Emmy Awards nominees to make a donation to Planned Parenthood instead.
The magazine’s move comes after the nation’s largest abortion provider decided Monday to drop out of Title X, the federal family-planning program for low-income patients, in response to a Trump administration rule barring groups who provide abortions or abortion referrals from receiving program funds.
Planned Parenthood received as much as $60 million annually from the $286 million Title X program, which pays for birth control, STD testing, and cancer screenings for about 4 million low-income people.
“Variety continues to advocate for women’s rights, including issues of healthcare and gender disparity in the entertainment industry, and we stand with Planned Parenthood and our longstanding partnership with Women In Film,” read a statement from Variety’s editor-in-chief Claudia Eller and Michelle Sobrino-Stearns, its group publisher and chief revenue officer.
The Trump administration rule, called “unethical” and a “gag rule” by abortion-rights advocates, requires “physical and financial separation” between abortion services and groups receiving funding.
“We are so grateful to Variety for its unwavering support of Planned Parenthood and commitment to sexual and reproductive health and rights,” said Caren Spruch, Planned Parenthood’s director of arts and entertainment engagement.
“We refuse to let the Trump administration bully us into withholding abortion information from our patients,” read a statement last week from Alexis McGill Johnson, Planned Parenthood’s acting president.
