The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has halted Title X government funding for Planned Parenthood, the nation’s top abortion provider.
Title X provides funding for “natural family planning methods, infertility services, and services for adolescents, highly effective contraceptive methods, [and] breast and cervical cancer screening and prevention,” among other services.
HHS said in a statement it is withholding funding from 16 organizations—nine of which are affiliated with Planned Parenthood—while it evaluates their policies for possible violations of civil rights law and executive orders issued by President Donald Trump.
“HHS is conducting this evaluation to ensure these entities are in full compliance with Federal law and applicable grant terms, and to ensure responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars,” the statement reads.
Opponents of the freeze say it will cut off some services to low-income patients.
“We know what happens when health care providers cannot use Title X funding: People across the country suffer, cancers go undetected, access to birth control is severely reduced, and the nation’s [Sexually Transmitted Infections] crisis worsens,” Planned Parenthood president Alexis McGill Johnson said in a statement on Monday.
The decision is likely to ignite yet another legal and political battle.
In 2017, during his first term, Trump reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy, prohibiting organizations that receive Title X funds from giving referrals for abortions.
At that time, Planned Parenthood withdrew from the Title X program, only returning when President Joe Biden rescinded the policy.
Most notably, Trump’s appointments of Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court eventually led to the repeal of the 1972 Roe v. Wade decision, which had legalized abortion nationwide.
“For 54 years, they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I did it. And I’m proud to have done it,” Trump later said during an interview with Fox News.
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster cut funding to Planned Parenthood—and all other abortion providers—in 2018. A lawsuit in response to the defunding has come before the Supreme Court. If Planned Parenthood fails in the case, it is possible that other states could follow South Carolina’s example, crippling the organization financially.
“South Carolina has made it clear that we value the right to life. Therefore, taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize abortion providers who are in direct opposition to their beliefs,” the governor said in a Feb. 10 statement.
