Clinics begin closing as Trump admin continues freeze on family planning funds
Clinics around the country that provide contraception and other reproductive health services to low-income patients are running out of funds as they await word from the Trump administration on tens of millions of dollars in grants frozen last month.
Dozens of medical providers from California to Maine, including nine Planned Parenthood affiliates, have struggled to stay afloat since more than $65 million dollars for the Title X family planning program was withheld on April 1 — a funding freeze the Trump administration said was aimed at enforcing executive orders on diversity and immigration. Federal officials gave the groups 10 days to submit detailed records showing they don't discriminate in hiring or in patient care, but those who did so by the deadline said they have not received a response.
'It's been radio silence,' said Sarah Stoesz, the interim CEO of Utah's Planned Parenthood chapter. 'For some inexplicable reason, they are taking a meat axe to the healthcare system in America.'
Utah is one of seven states to lose all Title X funding, along with California, Hawaii, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, and Montana. The National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, which represents most Title X grantees, estimated that 846,000 patients will lose access to services if the funding isn't restored.
The Trump administration did not respond to questions about the status of the funds.
Some impacted health providers are considering legal action. Others are pleading with their state legislatures and private donors to backfill the missing federal dollars. And some, having exhausted their emergency funds, are shutting their doors.
Two of the eight Planned Parenthood health centers in rural Utah will close at the end of this month after the Trump administration froze $2.8 million in Title X funds the state affiliate was slated to receive. The clinics — one on the northern border near Idaho and the other by the southern border with Arizona — collectively saw roughly 4,500 patients in 2024.
While Utah's Planned Parenthood chapter will attempt to continue seeing some of those patients by telehealth, some will need to drive more than 100 miles to reach the nearest physical family planning clinic if they need in-person services. The group is also cutting staff and increasing its sliding scale fees for low-income patients at its remaining Utah clinics as a result of the funding freeze.
'The impact is going to be particularly brutal in red states that don't have a local government that is ready to step up and help support family planning services,' said Shireen Ghorbani, the group's interim president. 'And our county health departments and regional health departments do not always have the capacity, and, in fact, often refer patients to Planned Parenthood for STI testing. So we anticipate that people will defer care or just not receive the care that they need.'
The Trump administration is also withholding nearly $2 million from Maine Family Planning — the Title X grantee that supports 60 clinics across the state — over what the organization's CEO George Hill called 'DEIA-related concerns.' That's about 20 percent of its annual budget, a loss Hill said 'will have consequences,' particularly in a rural state where people can't easily find another source of care.
'If the funds dry out and we're unable to replace them, clinics will close. Access will be denied. And a lot of people are simply not going to get contraception if they have to get in the car and drive two hours away,' he said. 'It's gonna be painful, and I resent it deeply.'
In addition to the tens of millions of dollars in grants withheld in their entirety over alleged violations of Trump's executive orders and federal law, the administration also gave partial grants to some Title X providers that they report are inadequate to maintain services.
Every Body Texas, the nonprofit supporting more than 150 Title X clinics across the state, received $7 million earlier this month — less than half of the $15.4 million they got from the program last year. CEO Kristie Bardell called it 'a major blow,' and warned that without additional funding, they will have to cut services for their more than 180,000 patients. Texas has the largest population of uninsured people in the U.S., and Bardell said the demand for free and subsidized family planning services is higher than she's ever seen.
'When reproductive health care disappears, cancer goes undetected, rates of unintended pregnancy and STIs rise, and the health gap grows wider,' she warned. 'We're risking decades of public health progress — and people's lives.'
Even if the funds are released in the coming weeks, the reprieve may only be temporary. A draft budget document obtained by POLITICO revealed that the Trump administration is considering getting rid of Title X — as well as other family planning programs like the HHS' Teen Pregnancy Prevention.
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