Trump Administration Freezes Tens of Millions in Family Planning Funding

The Washington Post, April 1, 2025

The Trump administration on Tuesday began withholding tens of millions in federal funding from Planned Parenthood and other health-care providers, a move that will curtail access to services including cancer screenings and affordable birth control. On Monday, Planned Parenthood said nine of its affiliates had received notice from the administration that it would withhold funding from Title X, the nationwide family-planning program. Since 1970, Title X has provided federal funding to health centers for family planning aid and reproductive health care, including birth control and other nonabortion services – including about $286 million in the 2024 fiscal year. In total, Title X funding is being withheld from 16 organizations while the Department of Health and Human Services, which provides the awards for the program, investigates “possible violations of their grant terms,” the agency said in a statement to The Washington Post on Tuesday. Experts say the funding freeze will imperil low-income and uninsured or underinsured people who have relied on clinics funded by the half-century-old program from getting affordable health care. The freeze leaves seven states with no Title X funding as of Tuesday, according to the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association, which represents publicly funded family planning organizations around the nation. Clare Coleman, president of the association, said the move sends Title X, which she described as a “public health success story,” into disarray.

Supreme Court Grapples With South Carolina Bid To Defund Planned Parenthood

NBC News, April 2, 2025

The Supreme Court wrestled Wednesday with South Carolina’s attempt to defund Planned Parenthood, with some conservative justices expressing skepticism that individual Medicaid patients can sue to enforce their right to pick a medical provider. Although the divisive issue of abortion lurks in the background, the case focuses on a technical legal question of whether those eligible to use Medicaid, a program for low-income people administered by states, can sue to pick their preferred health care providers. Federal funding that flows to abortion is already banned, but anti-abortion activists have long argued that any funding for groups like Planned Parenthood, even if it is used for other purposes, helps them carry out their broader mission. If the court rules that people should not have a right to sue, it would benefit South Carolina’s effort to cut Planned Parenthood off from Medicaid funds in the sense that if the state were to do so, patients would not have any legal recourse to enforce their right to pick the health care organization of their choice.

Alabama Can’t Prosecute Those Who Help With Out-of-State Abortions

The New York Times, March 31, 2025

Alabama cannot prosecute doctors and reproductive health organizations for helping patients travel out of the state to obtain abortions, a federal judge ruled on Monday. Alabama has one of the strictest abortion bans in the country, and in 2022 its attorney general, Steve Marshall, a Republican, raised the possibility of charging doctors with criminal conspiracy for recommending abortion care out of state. Multiple clinics and doctors challenged Mr. Marshall’s comments in court, accusing him of threatening their First Amendment rights, as well as the constitutional right to travel. The Justice Department under the Biden administration had also weighed in with support for the clinics, arguing that “threatened criminal prosecutions violate a bedrock principle of American constitutional law.” On Monday, the judge, Myron H. Thompson of the Middle District of Alabama, in Montgomery, ruled that Mr. Marshall would be violating both the First Amendment and the right to travel if he sought prosecution. “It is one thing for Alabama to outlaw by statute what happens in its own backyard,” Judge Thompson, who was named to the court by President Jimmy Carter, wrote in his 131-page opinion. “It is another thing,” he added, “for the state to enforce its values and laws, as chosen by the attorney general, outside its boundaries by punishing its citizens and others who help individuals travel to another state to engage in conduct that is lawful there but the attorney general finds to be contrary to Alabama’s values and laws.”

Nevada Can Enforce Dormant 1985 Law Requiring Parental Notification of Abortion, Judge Rules

The Associated Press, April 1, 2025

A long-dormant 1985 state law in Nevada – requiring parents or guardians to be notified before a minor undergoes an abortion – can be enforced, a federal judge ruled Monday. U.S. District Court Judge Anne Traum in Nevada said in a written decision that the 40-year-old law can take effect on April 30, but the judge also left open the possibility for abortion rights advocates to seek a court order blocking its reinstatement while they challenge the law’s constitutionality. The requirement has never before been enforced in Nevada because of a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that found it was unconstitutional based on Roe v. Wade. But after the Supreme Court reversed the landmark decision in 2022, stripping away constitutional protections for abortion, a group of district attorneys mostly in rural Nevada sued to restore the 1985 law. Planned Parenthood argued that the 1985 law, despite the reversal of Roe, remains “unconstitutionally vague” and that it violates minors’ rights to due process and equal protection. But Traum, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, said in her decision that “whether the statute is unconstitutional for another reason has not been fully litigated nor is that question before the Court in this motion.

GOP Lawmakers in 10 States Introduce Bills To Treat Abortion as Homicide

The Hill, March 28, 2025

A growing number of Republican state lawmakers are introducing legislation that would treat abortion as murder in a push to give legal rights to fetuses. Since the beginning of this year, Republican lawmakers have introduced bills in at least 10 states, including Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, South Carolina, Texas, Oklahoma, Indiana, Iowa, Idaho and North Dakota, that aim to charge pregnant women with homicide if they seek out or receive an abortion. While several of these bills have already failed to pass and the others are likely to meet the same fate, the influx of legislation shows more Republicans seeking to take a new step in restricting abortion rights: legally recognizing fetal personhood. In addition to abortion, some of the legislation calls for amending state law to classify the destruction of zygotes, embryos or fetuses as homicide. All of the states where they have been introduced, with the exception of North Dakota, allow the death penalty for homicide cases. The bills’ GOP sponsors have argued that fetuses are “as human as we are” and should be legally treated as such. Democrats, meanwhile, have sounded alarms about the legislation.

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Note: The information contained in this publication reflects media coverage of women’s health issues and does not necessarily reflect the views of the National Partnership for Women & Families.