The Trump administration is reportedly taking aim at women’s healthcare again by indefinitely freezing $27.5 million in grants, part of hundreds of millions of dollars that was set aside for pregnancy testing, contraception, STI treatments, and infertility counseling.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump officials said the pause on federal family-planning grants was in order to evaluate if the funds are going towards diversity initiatives, which the government has sought to eliminate.
No final decisions have been made, but the order could be implemented as early as this week, impacting sexual health organizations like Planned Parenthood and its affiliates. They were set to get about $120 million this year.
Trump’s federal intervention directly contradicts the approach he took during his campaign. The president last year said that abortion laws should be up to the states and refused to take a position on a national abortion ban promoted by his closest allies.
“My view is, now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation, or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land,” Trump said in a Truth Social video at the time. He did not address then what he would do if he was president and Congress handed him the same bill.
Trump has been all over the map on the abortion issue and often conflicted with official statements made by his campaign, upsetting pro- and anti-abortion protestors alike with his mixed messaging.
He made several moves against family planning in his first term, including by making it harder for low-income residents to access birth control by allowing employers to opt out of contraceptive health insurance coverage for their workers.
Now he’s coming after the Title X program, which gives free or discounted family planning services to four million people and 4,000 clinics per year.
Planned Parenthood CEO Alexis McGill Johnson told The Wall Street Journal that the administration “wants to shut down Planned Parenthood health centers by any means necessary, and they’ll end people’s access to birth control, cancer screenings, STI testing and treatment, and more to do it.”
She added in an email to the Daily Beast that “This is blackmail. President Trump and Elon Musk are holding Planned Parenthood patients hostage by slashing funds from birth control providers who receive Title X grants.”
According to the HHS website, the $120 million is only half the money that was supposed to go towards the Title X program this year. The Trump administration has not yet announced how long their first review will take, whether or not the money will be reallocated, or if they plan to review other programs.
“HHS is reviewing all Title X grant recipients to make sure they comply with Federal law and President Trump’s executive orders,” a HHS official said in an email to the Daily Beast. “HHS is concerned about the compliance of several awardees impacting $27.5 million in continuation awards. HHS expects all recipients of federal funding to comply with federal law.”
White House Spokesman Kush Desai added that “Across the federal government, President Trump is safeguarding the American taxpayer’s hard-earned dollars by ending the senseless taxpayer funding of DEI programs and initiatives, including grants to institutions in blatant violation of federal law.”
He also said that the administration will work to make sure all federal grantees are compliant with laws prohibiting “discrimination.”
Trump’s attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives has included major cutbacks on other federal support for women and minorities, especially for transgender individuals. In the last few weeks alone, Trump has rolled out a slew of executive orders declaring that the government recognizes only two genders, banning trans women from participating in women’s sports, restricting information about transgender issues and restricting gender-affirming care.
Under Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which also aims to end DEI, Trump’s team has laid off hundreds of employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health.
Trump tried to ban organizations that refer patients for abortions from receiving family planning grants in 2019, but former President Joe Biden rescinded the rule.
