Planned Parenthood will officially withdraw from the Title X family planning network on Monday, the deadline for the program's grantees to assure the Trump administration they would stop offering direct abortion referrals.
Their exit means they will no longer take any of the roughly $250 million in federal funds earmarked for the Nixon-era family planning program. However, Planned Parenthood officials did not confirm how much money they will be giving up in a call with reporters on Monday.
Alexis McGill Johnson, acting CEO of the organization's advocacy arm Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said Planned Parenthood grantees and their affiliate clinics will use emergency funds to cover the costs.
According to HHS, seven of the 90 total grantees for fiscal 2019 were Planned Parenthood affiliates that covered eight states. The grantees received $16.1 million, or 6%, of the $255.7 million awarded. This doesn't include all Planned Parenthood facilities that were subrecipients of the funding.
The financial hit will vary depending on the state and Planned Parenthood officials and their allied states are looking to the courts and to Congress to make it temporary.
But so far the courts have kept things uncertain for the program's grantees, and Planned Parenthood's exit represents the first major fallout from the Trump administration's new Title X rules.
The reproductive healthcare giant's decision was accelerated by the administration's Aug. 19 deadline requiring all grantees to state they won't offer direct counseling on abortions. At most, physicians or advance practice providers could include abortion clinics among other options, and only when directly asked.
These new requirements on abortion counseling inflamed major medical groups, including the American Medical Association, on the grounds they interfere with the physician-patient relationship.
If the courts don't step in, the decision could reshape the Title X network across the country, in some cases dramatically. For example, Planned Parenthood currently manages the Title X networks in such states as Alaska, Connecticut, Minnesota and Utah.
There are several other states where Planned Parenthood sees at least one-third of patients who qualify for Title X financial aid, including Arizona, California, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Montana and Pennsylvania.
Additional Title X grantees have said they are also leaving the program. Maine's sole Title X grantee, Maine Family Planning, sent a letter to HHS on Monday to announce it will withdraw by the end of the day.
The health departments in Hawaii, Oregon and Washington state, each of which run the Title X networks in their states, have signaled they will leave the network as well. Washington had already stopped accepting the federal funds, without fully severing ties with HHS.
All told, seven states have said they will not comply with the new regulations.
Still, Planned Parenthood has hopes Congress will intervene. Johnson said the group and its supporters are calling on both chambers of Congress to block the new rules through an amendment to the upcoming spending bills.
The court battle is far from over. The full 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments the week of Sept. 23 on the merits of the lawsuit to overturn the new rule.
Plaintiffs including Planned Parenthood had asked the court to intervene before Monday's deadline but on Friday the court refused, triggering Planned Parenthood's exit from the network.
The major provision of the Trump administration's revised Title X program—first proposed in May 2018—would ban any Title X funding from a clinic that offers on-site abortions. This would essentially ban Planned Parenthood facilities from the program, although that portion of the regulation isn't slated to come into effect until next March.
A spokesperson for HHS disputed Planned Parenthood's claims that their clinics were forced out of Title X, saying that they accepted the most recent grant funding after the regulations were in place.
"Some grantees are now blaming the government for their own actions—having chosen to accept the grant while failing to comply with the regulations that accompany it—and they are abandoning their obligations to serve their patients under the program," said Mia Palmieri Heck, director of external affairs at the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health.
