ICYMI: Senator Murray Statement on Trump Plans to Freeze Tens of Millions in Title X Family Planning Funds for Planned Parenthood, Other Organizations
Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senators Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, Tina Smith (D-MN), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) reintroduced the Expanding Access to Family Planning Act, a bill that would safeguard funding for Title X – the country’s only federal program dedicated to providing family planning and preventive health services, including birth control, cancer screenings, testing for sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and reproductive health care – following attacks on the program by the Trump Administration last week. Title X clinics serve 4 million people annually, and in 2023 alone, more than 1.5 million visits to Planned Parenthood health centers were made possible by the program. The bill is co-led in the House of Representatives by Representative Sharice Davids (D, KS-03), Judy Chu (D, CA-28) and Dina Titus (D, NV-01).
“For more than 50 years, Title X funding has helped women across the U.S. get cancer screenings, contraception, pregnancy tests, STI treatment, and so many other services that are critical to helping women—especially women with the tightest budgets—stay healthy and plan their futures,” said Senator Murray. “I’m proud to co-lead the Expanding Access to Family Planning Act—this legislation would give Title X reliable annual funding to provide reproductive health care to more people, meeting a growing need for these vital services. As the Trump administration does everything they can to attack Title X and rip away women’s ability to receive basic health care, Democrats will keep fighting back to protect a woman’s right to make her own decisions about her body and her future.”
“We are at a time when Americans’ reproductive freedoms are under attack from extremist Republicans – which makes the Title X Family Planning Program more important than ever,” said Senator Smith. “Title X funding provides American women with access to critical reproductive health services. I invite my Republican colleagues who claim to champion family planning services to join us in supporting this commonsense legislation that will protect women’s access to life-saving services and birth control, pregnancy counseling, infertility services, and more.”
“The Title X program saves lives by making sure people have access to affordable cancer screenings, STI testing, birth control, and pregnancy tests,” said Senator Warren. “While the Trump administration puts women’s health at risk, Democrats are fighting back.”
The Expanding Access to Family Planning Act is even more crucial as the Trump Administration recently froze millions of dollars in already-appropriated Title X funding, impacting 16 organizations across several states. Planned Parenthood affiliates have lost access to as much as $3 million annually — resources they rely on to serve tens of thousands of patients each year. According to the Guttmacher Institute, the freeze could impact access to care for up to 1.25 million people, many of whom are low-income, people of color, or live in medically underserved communities.
“In Kansas and across the country, people are being turned away from the only places they can afford to get basic, lifesaving reproductive care — all because the Trump Administration is playing politics with their health,” said Representative Davids. “This bill protects trusted providers and ensures access to cancer screenings, birth control, and STI testing, no matter your income, where you live, or how you vote.”
“The Trump Administration is denying women across Nevada and the U.S. the freedom to make decisions about their own bodies and their families’ futures,” said Representative Titus. “By fully funding family planning services, we can protect their rights to access lifesaving preventive care, birth control, and other reproductive health services at a time when these freedoms are under constant attack.”
Specifically, The Expanding Access to Family Planning Act would:
- Guarantee stable, annual funding for Title X
- $512 million annually for 10 years, addressing the current funding shortfall and ensuring access to essential services.
- $50 million in mandatory funding for clinic construction, renovations, and infrastructure improvements.
- Protect providers like Planned Parenthoodfrom being excluded, as seen under the Trump Administration’s so-called “domestic gag rule.”
- Reinstate regulations prohibiting discrimination against providers who offer Title X services, ensuring continuity of care for patients.
- Provide information related to prenatal care, delivery, infant care, foster care, adoption, and pregnancy termination — unless a patient opts out of receiving information on certain options.
Senator Murray has consistently fought to strengthen and preserve the Title X program, and was a vocal critic of the first Trump Administration’s Title X gag rule and countless other efforts to undermine reproductive health care. Early in 2019, Senator Murray released a memo highlighting some of the negative impacts of the rule and comments from patients, providers, city and county officials, and religious organizations submitted in opposition. Senator Murray is also a longtime leader in the fight to protect and expand access to reproductive health care and abortion rights, and she has led Congressional efforts to fight back after the Supreme Court’s disastrous decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Murray has introduced more than a dozen pieces of legislation to protect reproductive rights from further attacks, protect providers, and help ensure women get the care they need; Murray has led efforts to push for passage of these bills on the floor multiple times. Murray also led her colleagues in raising the alarm about the threat a second Trump administration poses to reproductive rights and abortion access in every state, as outlined in Project 2025.
The full text of the Expanding Access to Family Planning Act is HERE.
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