The Restoration of Federal Funding for Planned Parenthood Is Yet Another Bad Sign for Pro-Lifers

Y esterday, the Trump administration restored a source of federal funding for Planned Parenthood through the Title X program, which had previously provided the organization with roughly $60 million in annual revenue. Given the fluidity of the situation, it remains to be seen whether this is a setback that reflects broader weakness in the administration’s commitment to defending the unborn, or whether the administration will restore its former policies that rightly denied Planned Parenthood access to this money — helping to repair the administration’s strained relationships with the pro-life world along the way.

Some history is in order. The Title X program was enacted under President Richard Nixon to promote “family planning,” but not abortion. The statute’s text is very blunt: “None of the funds appropriated under this title shall be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning.”

So why was Planned Parenthood receiving money under Title X to begin with?

As John McCormack explained in 2019, the nation’s leading abortion provider pretended for years that two “programs” could exist in their clinics with no physical or financial separation: the Title X-compliant program that does not perform abortions; and the program that does, in fact, perform them. These supposedly distinct programs were often located in the same building, referring patients to each other.

Planned Parenthood was not allowed to operate according to this scheme under executive directives in effect during the Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations. Bill Clinton reversed his predecessors’ rules, allowing Planned Parenthood to receive such funding. Regrettably, George W. Bush never reversed the Clinton rules, and Barack Obama also kept them in place. But the first Trump administration took the bold step of restoring the Reagan principles through its Title X Protect Life Rule. Joe Biden reversed that policy.

At its outset, the second Trump administration started to once again cut off Title X funding to Planned Parenthood, but this time on different grounds: Now, it was due to Planned Parenthood’s alleged violations of federal civil rights nondiscrimination laws, as interpreted via Trump executive orders banning various DEI measures.

Planned Parenthood sued to restore this funding, and it appeared that the lawsuit has not been going well for the administration. Politico noted how one of the examples of discriminatory conduct that the administration cited was from a non-Planned Parenthood Title X entity in Mississippi, which stated on its website: “Race, income, geography and/or identity should not determine whether a patient has access to high quality family planning care.” This relatively anodyne statement isn’t indicative of the DEI ideology of giving preferential treatment to persons based on some kind of minority status, which would be legally suspect. Now, the lawsuit has been dropped, and Title X dollars are flowing to Planned Parenthood once again.

So, is this a massive defeat for pro-lifers? Hard to say.

President Trump or Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could announce tomorrow (or, perhaps, on January 23 at the March for Life in Washington, D.C.) that the administration will reinstate the Title X Protect Life Rule. Such a move, though necessary and courageous, would certainly generate political controversy and prompt another legal battle. It remains to be seen if the administration wants that kind of fight. Trump has been leery of engaging with the abortion issue ever since the Republican Party’s mediocre performance in the 2022 midterm elections, and his political team seems strongly opposed to discussing abortion at all before the 2026 midterms.

The relationship between Trump and pro-lifers is deeply strained at the moment. Trump’s recent suggestion that the GOP should be more “flexible” on the Hyde Amendment has met vigorous opposition from pro-life groups and pro-lifers in Congress. And there is ongoing dissatisfaction that HHS and the FDA have so far not moved to restrict the abortion pill, the single biggest driver of abortion in the country.

A recommitment to eliminating Planned Parenthood’s Title X funding, and to renewing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s one-year cut of Medicaid funds to abortion providers, would be a significant step in reestablishing trust with the administration’s pro-life supporters. Pro-lifers vote, and Trump and congressional Republicans will need those votes in November.