As I’ve been saying for a while now, Planned Parenthood is on life support. Clinics around the country have been closing nearly every week. Here’s one of the latest.
A sign posted to the door of the Planned Parenthood location on Euclid Avenue said, ”Because our Title X funds have been withheld, this health center is closed effective immediately.”
Planned Parenthood has closed its Cleveland Health Center.
The sign continued, “Ongoing attacks from the Trump Administration have disrupted the essential services we provide to the Cleveland Community.”
In addition to the closures, the Supreme Court ruled last week on a case that was 7 years in the making. In a 6-3 decision, the court said that South Carolina had the right to cut Planned Parenthood off from Medicaid funding for non-abortion services if the organization continued to offer abortions. National Review pointed out that this helps clarify what business PP is really in.
Medina is about more than legal standing. It’s about exposing the abortion industry’s long-running attempt to cloak itself in the language of “health care” while operating as a billion-dollar enterprise built around abortion, politics, and profit.
Other states could pass similar laws but even those that don’t are likely to see an impact soon. The imminent passage of the Big Beautiful Bill, which President Trump hopes to sign Friday, is going to put the organization in a difficult position, especially in blue states.
The GOP spending bill would bring on the closure of additional clinics by defunding Planned Parenthood, the single largest abortion provider in the US, and other abortion clinics for at least 10 years. That would be disastrous not only for abortion access, but also for access to non-abortion reproductive care for low-income people.
The organization estimates that almost 200 of their clinics could close as a result of the legislation, affecting 1.1 million patients, the vast majority of whom live in states where abortion is legal.
The way this would work is similar to what happened in South Carolina. The BBB would ban Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid reimbursement for non-abortion services so long as they continue to offer abortions. In other words it would give the organization’s affiliates a choice. Either stick to non-abortion healthcare and continue getting federal funds or continue providing abortions without federal funds.
The bill imposes a one-year ban on state Medicaid payments to any health care nonprofit that offers abortions and received more than $800,000 in federal funding in 2023. The restriction jeopardizes Planned Parenthood’s ability to keep operating in some states.
While federal law already prohibits federal Medicaid dollars from paying for abortions, the bill would affect the stream of federal money that covers other services, and thus helps keep clinics open. Though not all individual Planned Parenthood locations provide abortions, the legislative language could knock them out of Medicaid if they are part of a regional network that does offer the procedures.
Angela Vasquez-Giroux, a national spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said that the national office would never recommend that affiliates stop performing abortions. But the national organization “does not direct the actions of an affiliate,” she added. “Our governance structure does not allow for that, by design.”
A Planned Parenthood affiliate in California carefully considered the choice presented by the BBB. It was a choice between providing services not related to abortion to about 80% of its customers or performing abortions and being forced to close a bunch of clinics. The PP affiliate chose abortions.
One of the largest affiliates, Planned Parenthood Mar Monte in Fresno, Calif., offers a window into the difficult choice that some clinic operators could face if Mr. Trump signs the spending bill into law…
By offering abortions, the affiliate jeopardizes a good chunk of its revenue. Over the past 12 months, the affiliate estimates, federal Medicaid payments accounted for $70 million to $75 million — or nearly half — of its $152 million in revenue, the affiliate said in an email to The New York Times, and paid nearly 85 percent of Mar Monte’s patients’ bills…
A decision to continue performing abortions, the memo said, would most likely lead to a majority of the patients who rely on Medicaid — about 80 percent of the affiliate’s patient base — “no longer being able to access health care.”
Stacy Cross, the president of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, said in an email to The Times that the affiliate evaluated the various scenarios and decided that it would continue to offer abortions even if the spending bill becomes law.
The group is now hoping that some private “philanthropist” will step in and offer $100 million to keep all their clinics open despite their choice to put abortions ahead of healthcare services. Covering all the PP clinics in California alone would cost $300 million.
Who knows? Maybe Alex Soros will decide to take them up on it but it’s a lot of money and he’ll have to keep it up year after year if the BBB passes.
