Trump Uses War on ‘DEI’ to Freeze Funding for Family Planning Providers

In a letter to the providers obtained by Politico, Amy Margolis, the deputy director of the HHS Office of Population Affairs, claimed the Planned Parenthood affiliates’ mission statements “paint a picture of Planned Parenthood that suggests it is engaged, across its affiliates, in widespread practices across hiring, operations, and patient treatment that unavoidably employ race in a negative manner.” Margolis further accused Planned Parenthood of “overtly [encouraging] illegal aliens to receive care” and “taxpayer subsidization of open borders.” 

Close to half of all states could lose some or even all Title X funding if the Trump administration withholds these grants. In her newsletter, Abortion, Every Day, Jessica Valenti warns that, as of Tuesday, California, Hawaii, Maine, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Tennessee, and Utah will no longer receive funding under Title X. Alaska, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia are also impacted. 

It’s not just Planned Parenthood organizations. One provider, Converge, received a letter, shared with Valenti, which cites the organization’s 2020 statement condemning anti-Black racism in the wake of the police shootings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. Converge is the sole Title X grantee serving Mississippi, providing contraception, STI testing and treatment, cancer screenings, and more to one of the poorest states in the country.

“The Trump Administration intends to eliminate systems and resources that impact all of us, especially those with the fewest resources,” Dr. Jamila Perritt, president of Physicians for Reproductive Health and an OBGYN who’s worked in a clinic that receives Title X funding for 15 years, said in a statement. “Their desire to control who gets pregnant, who stays pregnant, who has the privilege of surviving their pregnancies, and who receives access to resources to raise families is violent and dangerous.”

The impacted organizations have been given 10 days to provide an extensive array of documentation proving they’re in compliance with this administration’s executive orders. Clare Coleman, the CEO of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, an organization that represents most Title X providers, told Politico that despite the administration’s claims that providers are being targeted for violating federal policy, they’re actually being punished for following it. They filed their grant applications under the Biden administration, which called on potential grant recipients to prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

“The administration would have been well within its rights to say, ‘We have a new president with new priorities, so we’re going to give you 30 days, 45 days, even just two weeks, to amend your application,’” Coleman said. “If you want public health programs to comply with the president’s stated priorities, you give them a fair chance to demonstrate compliance.” But alas: Nope! Trump’s HHS has given these organizations 10 days, which some of them say is an impossible task given their already extreme workload serving millions of patients. That seems to be the point.

Last week, we also learned Trump’s HHS cut funding for a program that aimed to address the lack of research on the role of domestic violence in rising maternal mortality. (Homicide is the leading cause of death for pregnant people in the U.S.) The project’s leader told Mother Jones she suspects the Trump administration used AI to identify and target any programs that include terms like “equity.” And, since their grant was titled, “Restoring equity to measuring and preventing perinatal intimate partner violence,” their $400,000 grant was canceled. In a letter to the research team, HHS wrote, “Research programs based primarily on artificial and non-scientific categories including amorphous equity objectives … do nothing to enhance health, lengthen life, or reduce illness.” In February, the administration paused a CDC program analyzing sharp racial disparities in maternal mortality—also allegedly citing the president’s anti-DEI executive order. 

Trump also kicked off his second term by signing the global gag rule, which blocks federal funding for global organizations that even discuss abortion. Most of the impacted organizations provide a broad range of services, including contraception, HIV treatment, child nutrition, water sanitation, malaria, and tuberculosis. In Trump’s first term, he also imposed a policy known as the domestic gag rule, barring federal funding for organizations that even inform patients about the option to have an abortion. 

Despite Nixon being the one to sign Title X into law, Republicans have been attacking this program since the Reagan administration in an effort to try and gut abortion access and rally around their mission to defund Planned Parenthood—even as Title X funding can’t be used for abortions. Attacking federal dollars for Planned Parenthood and other family planning providers really just guts access to a range of other health services. Recall that when then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) defunded Planned Parenthood in his state in 2013, by 2015, this resulted in a massive HIV outbreak across a county that was left without access to a sexual health provider.

Trump often invokes his popular vote victory, which was the slimmest in over a century, as evidence that he has a mandate to do whatever he wants. But nearly 80% of voters oppose the administration taking away federal funding for birth control for low-income patients—including 63% of Trump voters.