The Trump administration "quietly released" Title X family planning funds to Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, prompting the American Civil Liberties Union to drop its lawsuit that sought to restore the funds, Politico reported Jan. 13.
The Trump administration previously froze about $27.5 million in federal family planning grants to groups including Planned Parenthood as part of its probe into diversity, equity and inclusion programs, sometimes referred to as DEI, within federal agencies.
Those Title X funds were just a fraction of the taxpayer funds Planned Parenthood receives annually. The group's 2023-2024 annual report showed it received more than $700 million in taxpayer funds -- in the form of government health services reimbursements and grants -- for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2024.
Planned Parenthood affiliates in states including Utah saw their Title X funds cut in response to the freeze. But on Jan. 12, the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah announced it was once again able to resume its participation in the program.
"We are thrilled that Title X funding is restored to Utah for now, allowing more Utahns to get critical family planning services, such as birth control, cancer screenings, and STI testing, that they otherwise could not afford," Shireen Ghorbani, president and CEO of PPAU, said in a statement.
Politico also obtained a Dec. 19 court filing from U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro in which she wrote the review of the Title X funds "is completed, and all grants at issue for Plaintiff's members have been restored," and asked the challengers to consider whether "this matter can be voluntarily dismissed in light of the restoration of the remaining grants."
Politico reported the Department of Health and Human Services released the funds in December. HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment from OSV News.
The ACLU suit was dropped Jan. 12.
Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life Action, told OSV News, "There is a way to fire Planned Parenthood from all programs, instead of handling this piece by piece, and that's debarment," referring to a process that would ban the group from entering new federal contracts and grants.
"Planned Parenthood needs a full DOGE experience, of evaluating them for fraud and for all the allegations of failure to report sex crimes or operating a racist work environment, to name only a few of the charges recently made," Hawkins said, in reference to the Department of Government Efficiency, an unofficial task force with the stated intent of curbing federal spending.
"We are calling on the Trump administration to debar Planned Parenthood and finally tell them, 'You're fired,'" Hawkins said.
In a post on X, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which works to elect pro-life candidates to public office, argued the "The Protect Life Rule" issued during the first Trump administration "stopped Big Abortion businesses from using Title X taxpayer $$ as a slush fund. Biden canceled it. The Trump admin must immediately reinstate it."
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is still defending in court a provision of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act -- legislation that enacted key items of the president's legislative agenda on issues including taxes and immigration -- that would eliminate funds for one year for health providers who also perform abortions. A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed enforcement of that provision in December while legal challenges to it proceed.
Supporters of allowing Planned Parenthood to receive taxpayer funds point to that group's involvement in cancer screening and prevention services -- such as pap tests and HPV vaccinations -- but critics argue the funds are fungible and could be used to facilitate abortion.
Efforts to strip Planned Parenthood of public funds are sometimes referred to as "defunding."
The Catholic Church teaches that all human life is sacred from conception to natural death, and as such, opposes direct abortion. After the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, church officials in the U.S. have reiterated the church's concern for both mother and child, and called for strengthening social support for those living in poverty or other causes that can push women toward having an abortion.
