'Deeply misguided': Trump administration extends Title X funding for abortion businesses

The Trump administration is extending funding for abortion providers, including Planned Parenthood, under federal Title X family planning programs — despite Planned Parenthood's years of skirting federal requirements and a successful elimination of those taxpayer dollars during the first Trump administration.

White House spokesperson Kush Desai told the Daily Wire that the administration "has issued the fifth and final year of Title X grants that were locked in place during the Biden presidency," and that it "faced significant legal challenges in stopping any of these dollars from going out.”

Pro-life groups and leaders are crying foul.

Key Takeaways:

• The Trump Administration has extended Title X taxpayer funds to Planned Parenthood for another year, claiming it "faced significant legal challenges in stopping any of these dollars from going out.”

• Pro-life leaders have called this a "betrayal" of pro-life Americans, "deeply misguided," and "completely hypocritical."

• They also say this could have easily been prevented, had the Trump administration reinstated the Protect Life Rule that was in effect during his first administration; this required any abortion businesses receiving Title X funding to separate their abortion-related services from their other services both fiscally and physically.

• Planned Parenthood receives most of its taxpayer funding through Medicaid and Title X, even though it routinely violates the rules and regulations of those programs and has been repeatedly exposed for defrauding taxpayers by filing false and exaggerated claims.

The Details:

Title X Funding to Abortion Providers Extended Another Year

This week, the Daily Wire confirmed that the Trump Administration has extended Title X taxpayer funds to Planned Parenthood for another year:

“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,” [Kush] Desai said.

He noted that HHS will soon be releasing a new Title X funding opportunity for the next five-year funding cycle, one that will prioritize life and promote the administration’s pro-family agenda.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services continue “to faithfully execute the One Big Beautiful Bill’s defunding of Planned Parenthood in Medicaid spending, and the Administration continues to scrap millions of taxpayer funding for the international abortion industry,” he said.

Planned Parenthood Has Violated Title X Requirements

In just one year, Planned Parenthood received nearly $800M in taxpayer funding while committing over 400K abortions according to its latest annual report (2023-2024).

Since the year 2000, Planned Parenthood has:

… committed over 7.5M abortions (7,534, 941) while providing just 323k prenatal care services.

… received nearly $11.4B from taxpayers while accumulating nearly $2.2B in excess revenue.

… more than doubled its abortions (197k v 402k).

… received a 291% increase in taxpayer funding. 

Planned Parenthood received most of this money through Medicaid and Title X, even though it routinely violates the rules and regulations of those programs and has been repeatedly exposed for defrauding taxpayers by filing false and exaggerated claims.

Last year, Trump's Big Beautiful Bill removed Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood for one year. That funding prohibition is due to expire on our nation's 250th birthday.

Live Action outlined in the report, The Case for Defunding Planned Parenthood, as did Live Action News, that whether it is Medicaid or Title X, Planned Parenthood has egregiously violated specific requirements, disqualifying itself from receiving any taxpayer dollars.

Planned Parenthood, founded and buoyed by eugenicists and dubbed by its own staffers as “systemically racist,” has been accused of:

• discrimination (by multiple employees)

• racism 

• violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) 

• violating the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA)

• failing to pay employees a decent wage

• shoddy treatment

• discriminating against pregnant employees

• sexual harassment

• wrongful termination

• prioritizing profits over care

Staffers have alleged that the organization is “more concerned” with power and money than anything else, and decried the corporation’s ‘perpetually toxic’ culture. In February 2025, the New York Times reported similar allegations.

Yet, HHS’ website requires that recipients “administer your project in compliance with federal civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability, age and, in some circumstances, religion, conscience, and sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy).”

OPA’s Title X handbook for 2022 (updated December of 2024), makes clear under the heading “Project Administration” that recipients must “Provide services in a manner that does not discriminate against any client based on religion, race, color, national origin, disability, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, sex characteristics, number of pregnancies, or marital status. (42 CFR § 59.5(a)(4)).”

The HHS requirements list the Privacy Act as well as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Yet, Planned Parenthood has repeatedly failed to protect patient privacy.

In addition, both Medicaid and Title X require participants to comply with state and federal laws regarding the reporting of child sexual abuse — something Planned Parenthood has repeatedly violated:

No Title X services provider shall be exempt from any State law requiring notification or the reporting of child abuse, child molestation, sexual abuse, rape, or incest.

Fast Facts

• Of the direct Title X family planning funding recipients in the U.S., 90% are not Planned Parenthood facilities.

• In 2024, just nine out of 86 Title X grant recipients were Planned Parenthood facilities.

• Of all Title X service sites, the abortion corporation made up a small, single-digit percentage. In 2024, nearly $20.6 million in Title X dollars were directly granted to nine Planned Parenthood affiliates.

• Today, OPA's website shows at least 13 Planned Parenthood sites receiving the funds. OPA's January 2026 directory reveals just four of the 84 direct "Grantees" are Planned Parenthood facilities.

• Title X is administered through the Office of Population Affairs (OPA) under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). As of 2025, Title X operates with an annual budget of approximately $286.5 million.

• Money is fungible, and taxpayer dollars sent to abortion organizations like Planned Parenthood free up other dollars which would normally be used for salaries, facility rent, and general overhead.

The Backstory:

What is Title X?

In 1970, the United States House of Representatives approved the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act, Title X of the Public Health Service Act, authorizing federal funding for family planning services to low-income women.

One of the chief co-sponsors of the Title X statute was Rep. George H.W. Bush (R-Texas), who later became our nation’s 41st president.

Information has surfaced indicating that Congressman Bush’s push to fund federal family planning was actually initiated by Planned Parenthood and the Guttmacher Institute, a former “special affiliate” and research arm of Planned Parenthood. (Bush's father, Prescott Bush, was heavily involved with Planned Parenthood.)

Today, Title X programs have allocated millions of federal taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood and other family planning organizations annually, despite the corporation being historically viewed with suspicion for targeting “low-income,” impoverished Americans.

The History of Title X Funding

2019: The Trump administration's first effort to remove Title X funds from abortion providers, known as the "Protect Life Rule," was able to take effect. Under the rule, organizations receiving Title X funding for family planning services were required to keep these services separate, both physically and fiscally, from their abortion business. They were also barred from referring for abortions.

Planned Parenthood, which received approximately $60M annually from the funding, then voluntarily exited the Title X program because Planned Parenthood refused to separate its abortion business from its other services. 

2021: President Joe Biden rescinded the Protect Life Rule and again funded abortion businesses.

March 2025: When President Trump took office for a second term, the Protect Life Rule was not put back into place, though Trump did temporarily withhold Title X funding from abortion businesses. A notice from the Trump administration at the time explained that these facilities had "possible violations" of federal civil rights law and Trump's executive orders, including his dismantling of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives and "taxpayer subsidization of open borders."

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) withheld Title X grants totaling $65.8 million. Planned Parenthood was stripped of about $20 million.

April 2025: The ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, which represents Title X providers.

January 2026: The Department of Health and Human Services restored the grants in January, prompting outrage from pro-life leaders.

March 2026: Republican senators urged the Trump administration to reinstate the Protect Life Rule.

Pro-lifers React:

In a press release, Live Action founder and president Lila Rose called the move to allow Title X funding to go to abortion providers for another year "unacceptable" and a "betrayal of the pro-life Americans who expected this administration to stand firmly against abortion and against the forced public funding of those who commit it":

"Taxpayer dollars should never be used to prop up America’s largest abortion business. Planned Parenthood exists to end the lives of preborn children, and every dollar it receives helps sustain an industry built on violence against the innocent."

Mark Wiltz, Live Action's Director of Government Affairs, added:

"Taxpayer dollars should never be used to support organizations that perform abortions. Title X funding should be directed to providers that offer real healthcare to women and families without ending human life. This decision falls short of that standard. There are many providers across the country that care for women and families without involvement in abortion.”

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-Life America, called it "an inexplicable slap in the face to the pro-life GOP base."

She also wrote on X:

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. What this really looks like is a political calculation — a deeply misguided one.

Students for Life Action (SFLAction) President Kristan Hawkins called the move "completely hypocritical":

So let me get this straight, to comply with regulations, Title X fund would go to all of the abortion vendors who did the paperwork, while we wait for a regulation review.

Meanwhile, a law that has been on the books for decades that says you can’t mail of abortifacients – the Comstock Act – is completely ignored?

Unless the Comstock Act is enforced to stop death-by-mail, any stated concern with following Title X ‘regulations’ will be seen as completely hypocritical.

SBA's VP of Political Affairs noted that this all could have been "[e]asily preventable if the admin had put in place the Protect Life Rule from Trump’s first term. Meanwhile abortion drugs policy decimating state pro-life laws continues. Taxpayer $ of big abortion industry, unregulated abortion drugs. Biden dictating Trump abortion policy[.]"

Others said they are "deeply disappointed" by the decision.