Family Planning Clinics Close as Trump Funding Freeze Lingers

Health centers offering free and low-cost family-planning services have begun announcing plans to halt operations as the Trump administration continues its pause on roughly $66 million in federal grants.

Planned Parenthood affiliates in Michigan and Utah are set to close some clinics in the next two weeks to help rein in operating costs. Organizations in Missouri, Ohio, and other states are considering similar actions after the Department of Health and Human Services notified 16 grantees March 31 that it would temporarily withhold funding under Title X of the Public Health Service Act.

The pause, which HHS attributed to concerns that clinics were violating President Donald Trump’s executive orders on diversity and other restrictions on federally funded programs, left seven states completely without Title X money. Grants were partially stripped in 16 additional states, leaving them without federal support for contraception, cancer screenings, and other services to low-income individuals.

The National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association is challenging the freeze, arguing in a lawsuit filed Thursday that HHS acted unlawfully by withholding funds before completing an investigation into alleged violations.

Family planning organizations fear this is just the start of HHS cuts to reproductive health services, pointing to Title X restrictions during Trump’s first administration and growing momentum behind the movement to defund clinics promoting abortion care.

“For many, the Title X provider is the only health center providing family planning services for sometimes hundreds of miles,” so “that lack of access is going to have a ripple effect,” said Michelle Trupiano, executive director of the Missouri Family Health Council Inc., the sole Title X grantee in that state.

HHS Notices

The HHS letters, which immediately paused grants serving roughly 842,000 people, sent family planning providers into a state of emergency, organization leaders said.

“Normally, you would have an opportunity to respond and state your case before funds would be frozen,” said Erica Wilson-Domer, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio.

“That did not happen in this case,” Wilson-Domer said in an interview.

Planned Parenthood has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg Law is operated by entities controlled by Michael Bloomberg.

The Title X program has expanded since 1970 to serve more than 4,000 family planning clinics across the country at state health departments, federally qualified health centers, and other sites.

Some grantees “received notification that their grants were paused pending a compliance review,” and “requesting documentation within 10 days to assess compliance with grant terms and conditions,” the HHS said in an emailed statement. The agency didn’t share additional information on its plans.

The National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association represents 14 of the 16 affected grantees, nine of which are Planned Parenthood affiliates, the association’s president and CEO, Clare Coleman said. Each of the letters to grantees referenced Trump’s executive orders on diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as limits on the “use of taxpayer funds to provide services to people who can’t prove citizenship,” she said.

Trupiano said the notice she received pausing grants for her organization, which serves nearly 44,000 patients across Missouri and Oklahoma, referenced a 2023 job posting that included a section on “diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.”

Abortion rights advocates demonstrate outside the US Supreme Court on April 2 as oral arguments are delivered in the case of South Carolina’s attempt to exclude Planned Parenthood from Medicaid. Separately, states face losing federal Title X money for abortion care.

Photographer: Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images

Converge, the sole Title X grantee in Mississippi, said the letter it received cited the organization’s 2020 statement on systemic racism following the police killing of George Floyd. The statement is no longer available on the organization’s website.

‘Devastating’ Consequences

Leaders of Title X grantees say they have yet to receive additional information from the HHS. A “prolonged delay” would be “devastating” for Title X providers and the patients that rely on them, Coleman said.

Planned Parenthood Michigan’s reorganization plans include permanently closing three of its 14 health centers and consolidating two of its health centers in Ann Arbor. In Utah, which lost all its roughly $2.8 million in Title X funding, two Planned Parenthood locations that serve rural-area patients are set to close by May 2.

Wilson-Domer said that while Ohio’s Planned Parenthood locations are so far still able to provide free planning services to patients below the poverty level, some locations have had to reschedule appointments without Title X money to purchase long-acting reversible contraceptives, including intrauterine devices.

Trupiano said that “if it is clear we will not be receiving any funding in the future, the long-term impact is we will see many fewer providers, we will see clinics closing, and those that are at greatest risk are those in our rural communities.”

Amy Moy, co-CEO of the California and Hawaii Title X grantee Essential Access Health, said she is meeting with state leaders to push them to help fill some of the funding gaps.

But Trupiano doesn’t see that as a possibility in Missouri, where the Republican-controlled legislature is advancing a proposal that would effectively ban most abortions in the state.

More to Come

Family planning organizations and policy analysts predict additional Title X centers could see their grants taken away.

“I am deeply concerned that this is just the first batch of entities that will have grant money withheld,” Coleman said.

Ivette Gomez, a senior policy analyst at KFF focused on women’s health, said HHS will likely bring back some regulations from the first Trump administration, including prohibiting Title X grantees from referring clients for abortion services. Such a move could lead to thousands of clinics leaving the Title X network, Gomez said.

The entire Title X program is also under threat amid the administration’s massive federal spending cuts. A draft fiscal 2026 budget obtained by Bloomberg Law last week includes a proposal to eliminate family planning funding.

Despite this, Coleman and other program leaders are urging the Trump administration to reverse course.

“Title X health centers are acting in good faith,” Coleman said. “I would urge the Trump administration to do the same and get this money flowing again.”