Obria Medical Clinics in California, an anti-abortion pregnancy center that bills itself as an alternative to Planned Parenthood, has received $1.7 million in federal family planning grants.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced Friday that the Christian organization, which also does not prescribe birth control, has been awarded the grants for the first time. Obria had applied for the grants, known as Title X, after it partnered with a health center that provides birth control.
“Many women want the opportunity to visit a professional, comprehensive health care facility — not an abortion clinic —for their health care needs; this grant will give them that choice,” Kathleen Eaton-Bravo, Obria’s founder and CEO, said in a statement.
In all, the organization is set to receive $5.1 million over three years. Three of the chain’s facilities operate in California.
The approval comes after the Trump administration announced new rules for organizations that receive the grants, which specify doctors cannot directly refer their patients for abortions and that say family planning has to be housed separately from abortion services.
The rule was aimed at stripping funding from Planned Parenthood, and a spokeswoman for the organization said in a phone call Friday that it was still reviewing the grants but confirmed some of its affiliates had lost funding. Ten affiliates in 12 states had the grants before, and now six affiliates in seven states are getting them. As many as 40,000 patients could be affected, Planned Parenthood said.
The newest rules for Title X grants are being contested by states and pro-abortion rights groups who say that they amount to a “gag rule” for doctors. The organizations have said they would have to either re-build their facilities or turn down the funds entirely because of the rule.
In all, the grants total $286 million a year and are intended to pay for birth control, testing of sexually transmitted diseases, and cancer screenings for 4 million low-income people. Federal funds are not permitted to go toward abortions except in the cases of rape, incest, or if a woman’s pregnancy threatens her life.
