Planned Parenthood CEO warns budget bill could devastate group and slash abortion access in blue states
'We are facing down the reality that nearly 200 health centers are at risk of closure. We're facing a reality of the impact on shutting down almost half of abortion-providing health centers,' Alexis McGill Johnson, Planned Parenthood Federation of Americas's CEO, said in an interview Wednesday morning. 'It does feel existential. Not just for Planned Parenthood, but for communities that are relying on access to this care.'
Anti-abortion activists have longed to 'defund' Planned Parenthood for decades. They are closer than ever to achieving their goal.
That $700m figure represents the loss that Planned Parenthood would face from a provision in the spending bill that would impose a one-year Medicaid ban on healthcare non-profits that offer abortions and that received more than $800,000 in federal funding in 2023, as well as the funding that Planned Parenthood could lose from Title X, the nation's largest family-planning program. In late March, the Trump administration froze tens of millions of dollars of Title X funding that had been set aside for some Planned Parenthood and other family-planning clinics.
'Essentially what you are seeing is a gutting of a safety net,' said McGill Johnson, who characterized the bill as a 'backdoor abortion ban' in a statement.
Medicaid is the US government's insurance program for low-income people, and about 80 million people use it. If the latest version of the spending-and-tax bill passes, nearly 12 million people are expected to lose their Medicaid coverage.
Donald Trump has said that he would like the bill to be on his desk, ready for a signature, by 4 July.
The provision attacking Planned Parenthood would primarily target clinics in blue states that have protected abortion rights since the overturning of Roe v Wade three years ago, because those blue states have larger numbers of people on Medicaid. Although not all Planned Parenthood clinics perform abortions, the reproductive healthcare giant provides 38% of US abortions, according to the latest data from Abortion Care Network, a membership group for independent abortion clinics.
Among the clinics at risk of closure, Planned Parenthood estimated, more than 90% are in states that permit abortion. Sixty percent are located in areas that have been deemed 'medically underserved'.
In total, more than 1.1 million Planned Parenthood patients could lose access to care.
'There's nowhere else for folks' to go, McGill Johnson said. 'The community health centers have said they cannot absorb the patients that Planned Parenthood sees. So I think that we do need to just call it a targeted attack because that's exactly how it is.'
Nationally, 11% of female Medicaid beneficiaries between the ages of 15 and 49 and who receive family-planning services go to Planned Parenthood for a range of services, according to an analysis by the non-profit KFF, which tracks healthcare policy. Those numbers rise in blue states like Washington, Oregon and Connecticut.
In California, that number soars to 29%. The impact on the state would be so devastating that Nichole Ramirez, senior vice-president of communication and donor relations at Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino counties, called the tax-and-spending package's provision 'a direct attack on us, really'.
'They haven't been able to figure out how to ban abortion nationwide and they haven't been able to figure out how to ban abortion in California specifically,' said Ramirez, who estimated that Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino counties stands to lose between $40m and $60m. Ramirez continued: 'This is their way to go about banning abortion. That is the entire goal here.'
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In a post on X, the prominent anti-abortion group Live Action reposted an image of a Planned Parenthood graphic calling the provision 'backdoor abortion ban'. 'They might be onto us,' Live Action wrote.
The Planned Parenthood network is overseen by Planned Parenthood Federation of America, but it also consists of dozens of independent regional affiliates that operate nearly 600 clinics across the country. In June, as the spending-and-tax bill moved through Congress, Autonomy News, an outlet that focuses on threats to bodily autonomy, reported that Planned Parenthood Federation of America's accreditation board had sent waivers out to affiliates to apply for approval to cease providing abortions in order to preserve access to Medicaid funding. On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that a memo sent to the leadership of one California affiliate suggests that leaders there had considered ending abortion services.
McGill Johnson said that there have been discussions within Planned Parenthood's network about what it would mean to stop offering abortions. But no affiliates, to her knowledge, are moving forward with plans to stop performing the procedure.
'Educating our volunteers and teams around hard decisions to stand and understand the impact of that is different than weighing and considering a stoppage of abortion,' McGill Johnson said.
The budget bill and Title X funding freeze aren't the only sources of pressure on the group. The US supreme court last week ruled in favor of South Carolina in a case involving the state's attempt to kick Planned Parenthood out of its state Medicaid reimbursement program – a ruling that will likely give a green light to other states that also want to defund Planned Parenthood.
At least one other organization that provides abortion and family-planning services, Maine Family Planning, will be affected by the provision, according to the organization's CEO, George Hill. Maine Family Planning directly operates 18 clinics, including several that provide primary care or are in rural, medically underserved areas. If the provision takes effect, Hill estimates, the organization would lose 20% of its operating budget.
'It's dressed up as a budget provision, but it's not,' Hill said. 'They're basically taking the rug out from under our feet.'
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