The Trump administration is poised to freeze millions in federal family planning grants to Planned Parenthood and other organizations while it investigates whether the money was used to fund diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
A Health and Human Services spokesperson told the Washington Examiner that the department is reviewing grant recipients to ensure that they are in compliance with President Donald Trump’s Day One executive order scrubbing DEI from the federal government.
“HHS is concerned about the compliance of several awardees impacting $27.5 million in continuation awards,” the department official said. “HHS expects all recipients of federal funding to comply with federal law.”
People familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal that the administration is set to freeze funds awarded to violators of Trump’s DEI executive order, particularly to Planned Parenthood affiliates.
No official decisions have been made, but the move could suspend a portion of domestic funding for pregnancy testing, contraception disbursement, treatment of sexually transmitted infections, and infertility consultation for lower-income people.
HHS, headed by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., manages the Title X program and gives free or discounted services to about 4 million people each year through about 4,000 clinics across the country.
White House spokesman Kush Desai told the Washington Examiner that the move is intended to ensure a wise use of taxpayer dollars, not explicitly to target Planned Parenthood or restrict family planning services.
“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,” Desai said. “The Administration supports the proper stewardship and prioritization of taxpayer dollars and will work to ensure all federal grantees are compliant with federal laws prohibiting discrimination.”
But an eventual freeze on Planned Parenthood funding would, in part, achieve a long-term conservative goal of defunding the abortion provider.
Federal dollars are not allowed to be used for abortions. Anti-abortion advocates argue, though, that the money that goes from the federal government to Planned Parenthood for other services indirectly supports abortions because money is fungible.
Title X funds have long been a political football, particularly with the intensifying debate over abortion in the past decade.
In 2019, the first Trump administration attempted to prevent organizations from receiving federal family planning dollars if they referred patients for abortions, but former President Joe Biden’s administration rescinded that rule.
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Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade federal abortion protections in 2022, the Biden administration attempted to withhold millions of dollars of federal funding for states with strict gestational age limits on abortions.
Oklahoma lost $4.5 million in Title X funding in 2023, and Tennessee lost $7 million, according to lawsuits against the Biden administration.
