Nearly 100 House Democrats urge RFK Jr. to restore millions in family planning grants

Yahoo

a day ago

Nearly 100 House Democrats are calling on Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to restore tens of millions of dollars in federal family planning grants to more than a dozen organizations that have been frozen for more than two months.
In a letter to Kennedy sent Friday and seen first by The Hill, 95 lawmakers said the organizations that had their Title X funding frozen on March 31 — including nine Planned Parenthood clinics — are still in the dark about the status of their grants.
At the time, the clinics said they received letters from the administration saying the grants were being 'temporarily withheld' due to possible civil right violations and President Trump's executive orders prohibiting the promotion of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and 'taxpayer subsidization of open borders.'
More than two months later, the lawmakers said the grantees 'remain without funding and have received no communication from the administration regarding the status of the investigations, the expected timeline, or the future of their funding.'
HHS declined to comment, citing ongoing litigation. The agency is being sued over the freeze by the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
'Congress has already appropriated these funds, and the administration has a responsibility to distribute them without undue delay or obstruction, ensuring that critical care is not disrupted for millions of people who rely on Title X services,' the group of lawmakers wrote.
The letter was led by Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), Judy Chu (D-Calif.), Lizzie Fletcher (D-Texas) and Sharice Davids (D-Kan.) and signed by 91 other Democrats.
Title X is the country's only federal program dedicated to providing affordable birth control and other sexual and reproductive health care to low-income Americans and has done so since the 1970s.
The lawmakers timed the letter to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut, which established a constitutional right to privacy regarding contraception and reproductive decisions.
'However, due to the actions of this administration, reproductive freedom is under threat,' the lawmakers wrote.
The first Trump administration prohibited providers from receiving Title X funding if they mentioned abortion or referred patients for abortions. It also required clinics to construct separate facilities for the procedure and other services.
More than a dozen grantees, including all Planned Parenthood affiliates nationwide, left the program in protest because of the rule.
The Biden administration reversed Trump's Title X rule in 2021.
Updated at 3:26 p.m.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.