(LifeSiteNews) — The Trump Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) has renewed Title X grants to Planned Parenthood for one “final” year, drawing outrage from pro-life leaders who question the administration’s claims that the law gave them no other choice.
Last year, the federal government froze $120 million in federal Title X “family-planning” grants to organizations suspected of not complying with the administration’s executive orders against involvement with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. The move did not specifically target Planned Parenthood or abortion but covered approximately $20 million received by Planned Parenthood locations across a dozen states.
In January, the far-left American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) withdrew a lawsuit against the move after U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro confirmed in court that a review had found the affected organizations were not in violation of the DEI rule, and the funding had therefore been restored. The retreat did not affect the majority of the Trump administration’s abortion defunding actions, which are still in effect and being defended from legal challenge, but caused deep alarm among the pro-life movement.
“HHS plans to update the Biden-era regulations governing the Title X program to ensure program integrity and reflect Trump administration priorities,” an insider was quoted as saying at the time, though details were not revealed.
On Tuesday, however, the Daily Wire reported that it caught wind the funding would be removed, and subsequently received confirmation from White House spokesman Kush Desai.
“The administration has issued the fifth and final year of Title X grants that were locked in place during the Biden presidency,” he said. “The administration faced significant legal challenges in stopping any of these dollars from going out.”
Desai added that “Title X funds cannot be used for abortions by law and, consistent with President Trump’s Executive Order on Enforcing the Hyde Amendment, the Administration remains committed to realigning the Title X program with the President’s pro-life and pro-family agenda going forward,” with the next renewal of Title X’s five-year funding cycle presenting an opportunity to assert different priorities and restrictions than the Biden administration’s.
Pro-life leaders did not take kindly to the news.
“Over 400,000 unborn children are killed by this corporation every year, making them the largest abortion chain in America,” responded Live Action founder Lila Rose. “The blood of these babies cries out. Taxpayer dollars should never fund the killing of innocent human beings.”
“Why do all the excuses go in the same direction? If the admin had reinstated the domestic Protect Life Rule for Title X, which withstood even the 9th Circuit, this would not be a problem now,” said Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America president Marjorie Dannenfelser. “What this really looks like is a political calculation — a deeply misguided one.”
“Absolutely maddening that [HHS] is continuing to fund an org whose business model is built on ending human lives, misleading pregnant women into thinking abortion is their only option, and delivering substandard healthcare even in the rare cases when abortion is not involved,” lamented March for Life head Jennie Bradley Lichter. “[HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] funding Planned Parenthood is not, by any stretch of the imagination, Making America Healthy Again.”
“If the Trump Admin is so insistent on ‘following the law’…Then, it’s also time to enforce the Comstock Act, which prohibits sending abortion-related materials by mail,” Students for Life of America president Kristan Hawkins pointed out. “It’s already on the books. It should stop all dangerous Chemical Abortion Pills from being shipped through the mail. You can’t pick and choose which laws to follow.”
As noted by Dannenfelser, the issue could presumably be rendered moot with the reintroduction of the Protect Life Rule, a key policy of Trump’s first term that required “clear financial and physical separation between Title X-funded projects and programs or facilities where abortion is a method of family planning” and banned “referral for abortion as a method of family planning.” It reduced Planned Parenthood’s annual funding by almost $60 million and disqualified the abortion giant from Title X regardless of its DEI policies, lack thereof, or any other unrelated criteria. President Joe Biden rescinded the Protect Life Rule, but the Trump administration has yet to reinstate it.
Apart from this Title X issue, taxpayer funding of abortion has been the issue on which President Donald Trump has most closely matched the pro-life record of his first term.
Within weeks of returning to office, Trump began enforcing the Hyde Amendment, which bans direct federal funding of most abortions; reinstated the Mexico City Policy, which forbids non-governmental organizations from using taxpayer dollars for most abortions abroad; and cut millions in pro-abortion subsidies by freezing U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) spending.
Last July, he signed into law his controversial “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (BBB), a wide-ranging policy package that includes a one-year ban on federal tax dollars going through Medicaid to any that provides abortions for reasons other than rape, incest, or supposed threats to the mother’s life.
That and other cuts have significantly impacted the bottom line of Planned Parenthood. According to Operation Rescue, 54 abortion facilities shut their doors in 2025, 36 of which were Planned Parenthood locations.
The abortion giant’s most recent annual report revealed that its affiliates across the nation took in $699.3 million in government “health services” reimbursements and grants, accounting for 39 percent of its total revenue during that period. At the same time, the abortion chain committed 392,715 abortions – yet its non-abortion procedures, such as pap tests and cancer screenings, continued to decline as percentages of its overall business.
