(Oregon Right to Life) — The Trump administration’s temporary freeze of “family planning” funding under the federal Title X program is already leading to permanent closures of abortion facilities.
Late last month, the Trump administration’s department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced plans to freeze tens of millions of dollars in Title X grants impacting Planned Parenthood affiliates and other organizations as federal officials investigate their compliance with the Trump administration’s policies surrounding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
Nine Planned Parenthood state affiliates were included in the funding pause, which is currently restricting more than $65 million in Title X funds, Politico reported last month.
Already, the “temporary” freeze has triggered the closure of Planned Parenthood facilities in Michigan.
“The day after the Title X funding freeze went into effect, Planned Parenthood of Michigan (PPMI) announced that it was permanently closing three of its health centers in the state, effective April 30, and that it would be consolidating two health centers in Ann Arbor by May 5,” Time Magazine reported Friday.
According to Paula Thornton Greear, president and CEO of PPMI, the “complexity and the layered approach” of the funding freeze has “forced” her organization to close the facilities.
The Michigan closures highlight the fact that the impact of the freeze even includes locations in blue states that have constitutional amendments designed to ensure abortion access.
“[T]hese constitutional protections don’t shield us from federal funding cuts,” Thornton Greear told Time Magazine. “While we can legally provide abortion care in Michigan, the ability to maintain affordable access across our services still depends heavily on programs like Title X, like Medicaid. The ballot measure protects the right, but not necessarily the accessibility or the affordability.”
And the Michigan Planned Parenthood facilities aren’t the only ones closing their doors for good amid financial troubles faced by the abortion chain.
Even before the Trump administration’s funding freeze, Planned Parenthood of Greater New York (PPGNY) announced that it would be closing its “Manhattan Health Center” abortion facility located at 26 Bleecker Street in New York City. In a statement, PPGNY President and CEO Wendy Stark said plans to close the facility were due to the need to “make difficult but necessary decisions” because of ongoing financial constraints.
And even prior to this year, Planned Parenthood has been actively shuttering abortion facilities due to inadequate funding and the enactment of laws protecting the unborn.
The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute reported that the number of brick-and-mortar abortion facilities has dropped by 5% between 2020 and March 2024, “a net loss of 42 clinics.” That decline has been partially caused by state pro-life laws passed after the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
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Meanwhile, reproductive rights experts are suggesting the temporary Title X freeze could be “just the beginning” of a broader series of federal cuts to Planned Parenthood and other abortion facilities, Time noted.
A large-scale defunding of Planned Parenthood is something pro-life advocates have been consistently urging the Trump administration to pursue.
Just last month, Oregon Right to Life joined hundreds of pro-life advocates and more than 150 pro-life organizations in urging the federal government to “Defund Big Abortion” in general and Planned Parenthood in particular.
In the March 26 letter addressed to members of Congress, the signers argued it is “urgent to cut funding for this industry that endangers women and unborn children and spends tens of millions of dollars to promote woke policies and candidates,” adding that Planned Parenthood’s political arm “pushes all-trimester abortions and promotes fearmongering lies that put women and girls at needless risk.”
In the 2022-2023 fiscal year, Planned Parenthood received almost $700 million in government funding, with federal grants and reimbursements from taxpayer dollars accounting for nearly 40% of its total revenue.
Meanwhile, though the permanent closures of abortion facilities as a result of the Trump administration’s funding freeze come as good news for pro-life advocates, hurdles remain as Planned Parenthood pivots to upping their telehealth appointments and prescriptions of dangerous chemical abortions in lieu of in-person procedures.
For example, the Time Magazine report noted that PPMI said it’s planning to increase its “virtual health services… including by offering telehealth seven days a week to provide services like birth control, medication abortion, and gender-affirming care.”
Telehealth services are quickly overtaking in-person abortion procedures nationwide, despite the increased risks to women. Chemical abortions accounted for over 60% of abortions in 2023, though the FDA estimates that roughly 85% of women who take the abortion pill regimen report at least one adverse reaction. In 2022, two Georgia women died after taking the abortion pill when they suffered incomplete abortions (a known risk) and contracted sepsis. A 2009 study from Finland found that chemical abortions were associated with an adverse reaction rate four times that of surgical abortions, including an increased risk of hemorrhage and incomplete abortion.
Oregon Right to Life believes in the sanctity of all human life from the moment of conception to natural death. Abortion ends the life of a genetically distinct, growing human being. We oppose abortion at any point of gestation. Read the full statement and all our position statements here.
