The Department of Health and Human Services on Friday released new guidance for a key government program promoting family planning, a development that appears to shift support away from a major abortion provider criticized by Republicans.
The changes impact the Title X family planning program, which Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and others have said benefits Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the industry. The day after Hawley urged HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to make changes to the federal program, the health agency released guidance on grants that emphasized targeting chronic disease conditions believed to be impacting fertility rates, avoiding a focus on contraception. The agency also appeared to amend grant language to read “None of the funds appropriated under this title shall be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning.”
Federal law, under the Hyde Amendment, prohibits the use of taxpayer funding to go toward performing abortions. Planned Parenthood receives federal funding, but it is formally allocated toward the organization’s family planning and contraception services. Such aid accounts for a large share of the services Planned Parenthood provides. The organization is also the country’s largest abortion provider, saying it performed over 434,000 in 2025.
Hawley has argued that allowing any funding to go to Planned Parenthood risks federal subsidy of abortions because the federal funding is “fungible.”
“How does HHS ensure, in practice, that Title X funds do not subsidize abortion operations at grantee organizations that co-locate abortion and family planning services in the same facilities, given that money is fungible and every federal dollar offsets other operational costs?” the senator questioned in a letter to Kennedy on Thursday.
The Washington Examiner reached out to HHS and Hawley for comment, but did not receive a reply.
The White House promised earlier this week that Title X grant funding released Friday would be the last Planned Parenthood receives, telling the Daily Wire that the Trump administration would be “realigning” the program to further “the President’s pro-life and pro-family agenda.”
The notice from HHS’s Office of Population Affairs on Friday emphasized targeting infertility issues through the lens of tackling the chronic disease epidemic.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION RESTORES FAMILY PLANNING FUNDS TO PLANNED PARENTHOOD
“By supporting body literacy education alongside evidence-based evaluation and treatment of chronic disease, Title X services can help patients move beyond symptom-focused care toward informed,
preventive, and restorative approaches to reproductive health,” the OPA guidance read.
“OPA seeks a broad competition for Title X grant awards and is interested in innovative strategies to address chronic disease; reduce overmedicalization by strengthening approaches focused on underlying behavioral and lifestyle factors of health and evidence-based practices such as fertility-awareness-based methods; promote health and body literacy; advance reproductive goals counseling for all clients; and support family formation,” it continued.
