The Trump administration is freezing some federal funding for affordable birth control, cancer screenings, and other sexual and reproductive healthcare, which will impact Planned Parenthood health centers across Texas. (Photo courtesy Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast)
Title X provides funds that allow uninsured and low-income people to get cancer screenings, birth control, and testing for sexually transmitted infections. It’s the country’s only federal family planning program — and the Trump administration just froze funding for about half of it, to the tune of $120 million.
“It’s always patients who pay the ultimate price.”
Working in a Planned Parenthood affiliate, Abby Ledoux is pretty mad over what’s happening with reproductive health care in Texas.
“For decades, anti-abortion lawmakers have systematically chipped away at our ability to provide comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care, and policy changes have created a gradual but steady stripping away of critical state and federal funding,” Ledoux, of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, explained.
Nine Planned Parenthood affiliates in the United States are reeling after receiving notice that the Trump administration isn’t releasing the funds that they’re entitled to through Title X. Texas is one of the states that’s affected—and all three of its affiliates will see a partial funding freeze.
Ledoux said as Planned Parenthood is cut off, patients pay the price. “Attacks on Planned Parenthood and the communities we serve only deepen the public health crisis in Texas, which includes the nation’s highest rates of under- and uninsured people, devastating—and growing—rates of maternal and infant mortality, rising rates of teen pregnancy for the first time in 15 years, and thousands of Texans with Medicaid forced to delay or forego care altogether,” she said.
Title X (as in “10,” similarly named to laws like Title I for education funds and Title IX that prohibits forms of sex discrimination) is the nation’s only federal program dedicated to providing affordable birth control, cancer screenings, and other sexual and reproductive health care to people with low incomes. Since it was enacted in 1970 as a bipartisan bill, the program has helped millions of people who couldn’t otherwise afford those services to get the care they need.
Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said this will hurt people across the country who rely on Planned Parenthood health centers for sexual and reproductive health care. “President Trump and Elon Musk are pushing their dangerous political agenda, stripping health care access from people nationwide, and not giving a second thought to the devastation they will cause,” she said.
In Texas, the three Planned Parenthood affiliates — Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas (PPGT), Planned Parenthood South Texas (PPST), and Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast (PPGC) — are all figuring out how to take care of people without having money they were planning for.
“We currently provide low- or no-cost preventive care to eligible patients through the Title X program at one of our six Houston-area health centers (Northwest),” Ledoux said. “At this time, we are still evaluating our next steps and what this will mean for PPGC’s one Title X site.”
For PPGT, a spokesperson said four health centers are affected — in El Paso, Lubbock, Paris and Waco.
“These four health centers were selected for Title X grant programs because they are located in a designated Health Professional Shortage Area (counties that do not have other Title X services providers) and/or in zip codes with high percentages of people living in poverty,” the PPGT spokesperson said.
In the third region, PPST has provided care to South Texans for more than 86 years.
“The Title X program has been a critical part of that work, helping us reach patients who often face multiple barriers to care, the PPST spokesperson said. “As we assess how this change will affect our patients and services, we remain committed to ensuring our communities continue to receive the care they need and deserve.”
Johnson echoes that, saying people need affordable health care options and they will do everything they can to get the grants back. “Planned Parenthood Action Fund will fight to get this funding restored and to keep politicians out of health care,” she said.
