Planned Parenthood at risk of closing hundreds of clinics, drastically limiting abortion access

If the budget reconciliation package before the U.S. Senate becomes law in the coming weeks, reproductive health advocates say the provision that would cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood clinics could serve as a backdoor nationwide abortion ban, eliminating access to one in four abortion providers.

The Republican-led bill, which already passed the House by a slim margin, is more than 1,000 pages and includes sweeping tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthy coupled with steep spending cuts to social services, including Medicaid.

On page 339 of the bill, Republicans included a provision prohibiting Medicaid funding from going to any sexual and reproductive health clinics that provide abortions and received more than $1 million in federal and state Medicaid funding in fiscal year 2024. While there may be a few independent clinics with operating budgets that high, it effectively singles out Planned Parenthood clinics.

Planned Parenthood clinics rely heavily on Medicaid funding, not to provide abortions, which is not permitted by federal law (except in cases of rape, incest or life-threatening health emergencies), but to provide standard reproductive health care at little to no cost, including treatment for sexually transmitted infections and cancer screenings, as well as contraception. Planned Parenthood provides services for about 2 million patients every year, and 64% of its clinics are in rural areas or places with health care provider shortages.

A Planned Parenthood spokesperson said people who use Medicaid make up half of the total patient volume nationwide for essential health care services provided by their clinics. Even though those patients aren’t seeking abortion care, funding cuts would affect the financial sustainability of those clinics, the spokesperson said.

Emily Anderson of Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho said if the bill is enacted, nearly 200 planned parenthood health centers across the country will be at risk of closure.

"Our clinics are open and we’re seeing patients, but we’re of course very concerned about Medicaid cuts and specifically the provision about defunding Medicaid in the Big Beautiful Bill," Anderson said.

The main health centers serving the region along the Washington-Idaho border are in Spokane, Spokane Valley and Pullman.

"We do have North Idaho in our name, but we do not currently operate any health centers in North Idaho," Anderson said.

Through Planned Parenthood alone, Anderson said the agency estimates that as many as 1.1 million patients could lose access to their care. 

The organization already identified that clinics in 24 states are at risk of closure with the cuts but told States Newsroom on Thursday that further analysis revealed nearly all of those clinics — 90% — are in states where abortion is legal, and in 12 states, approximately 75% of abortion-providing Planned Parenthood health centers could close. The entire organization has about 600 clinics in 48 states.

The “One Big Beautiful Bill” would result in nearly 11 million people losing access to health insurance by 2034, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, and add $2.4 trillion to the federal deficit over the next 10 years.

Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, told States Newsroom she and other advocates have been meeting with senators to lobby against the bill’s passage, emphasizing that it will have an outsized negative effect on rural clinics and hospitals.

“We are encouraging everyone to reach out to their representatives about this,” McGill Johnson said. “They know that they’re doing this under a watchful eye, and we want to make sure their constituents know about it.”

The defunding effort would be a win for several prominent anti-abortion organizations that have long lobbied for this change and nearly achieved it in 2017 with a similar budget bill. Americans United for Life sent a fundraising email to its supporters Thursday saying this is a “crossroads” for abortion in America. 

“So far in 2025 more than a dozen Planned Parenthood clinics have closed, their taxpayer funding is hanging by a thread, and the highest-ranking federal health officials are undertaking a ‘top-to-bottom review’ on the abortion pill,” the email attributed to CEO John Mize said. “It’s possible that very soon, mail-order abortion could be walked back, and more Planned Parenthood locations could be closing their doors for good.”

Closures would affect already fragile health care system, Midwest doctor says

Planned Parenthood has already closed some clinics around the country, including eight clinics across Iowa and Minnesota at the end of May. Dr. Sarah Traxler, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood North Central States, which includes Iowa and Minnesota, said the U.S. Health and Human Services’ decision to freeze Title X family planning funding to many reproductive health clinics at the beginning of May contributed to the decision to close those clinics. The North Central States affiliates serve more than 93,000 patients each year, about 20,000 of which use telehealth services.

About 30% of those patients use Medicaid to access care, she said.

“When Planned Parenthood isn’t able to provide services to patients as an essential safety net provider, it has ripple effects across the health care system at large,” Traxler said. “We are already sitting in a time in our country, and have for several decades, where we have patients who can’t access care.”

• • •

Press reporter Carolyn Bostick contributed to this report.