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California officials are giving Planned Parenthood $140 million to keep 109 clinics open and offset the financial strain from cuts imposed by Republicans in Washington, Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom announced.
Newsom said the move affirms the state’s continued commitment to abortion access for women in the Golden State amid efforts by President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans to shut down Planned Parenthood.
“California is a reproductive freedom state, and this latest investment continues to show our belief in protecting access to essential health care in times of distress,” Newsom said in a statement on Thursday. “Trump’s efforts to defund Planned Parenthood put all our communities at risk as people seek basic health care from these community providers.”
State lawmakers will also address the issue when the legislature reconvenes in January.
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California officials are giving Planned Parenthood $140 million to keep 109 clinics open. (AP/Mark Schiefelbein)
Planned Parenthood had announced it would eliminate primary care at clinics in Orange and San Bernardino counties starting in December. Five other clinics in the Bay Area, Santa Cruz and Central Valley, also shuttered in recent months over federal efforts to defund the organization.
Dr. Janet Jacobson, medical director of the Orange and San Bernardino counties clinics, told CalMatters the federal actions are “destroying our primary care program.”
“It’s inhumane to take away people’s health care,” Jacobson said. “Folks that have Medi-Cal should be able to see the provider of their choice for primary care.”
Planned Parenthood needs about $27 million a month to operate all its local facilities, Jodi Hicks, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, told CalMatters.
“The Planned Parenthood affiliates in California are grateful to Governor Newsom and our allies in the Legislature for taking this necessary step to keep Planned Parenthood health centers open and able to provide critical services as they weather the impacts of the federal defund,” Hicks said in a statement.
California is the fourth state to allocate public funds to support Planned Parenthood, joining Washington, Colorado and New Mexico. Lawmakers in Oregon and New York are also considering giving public money to the organization.
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California is the fourth state to allocate public funds to support Planned Parenthood. (REUTERS/Lucas Jackson)
Republicans in the nation’s capital and across the country have targeted Planned Parenthood over abortion services. Trump’s spending bill signed over the summer prohibited Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid money for its services, including abortions, mammograms, pap smears, birth control and sexually transmitted infection testing.
Facilities in GOP-led states with abortion restrictions have also been forced to cease the procedures following the 2022 Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe V. Wade and returned the power to make laws regarding abortion back to the states.
Planned Parenthood facilities have been shuttering in various states across the country, including California and New York. Planned Parenthood Mar Monte — which operates 30 health centers along the California coast, Central Valley and Nevada — shuttered five health centers in July after Trump blocked Planned Parenthood’s funding.
Mar Monte Chief of Staff Andrew Adams said the organization is working on ways to maintain its financial stability. Adams said the closures helped keep services at the organization’s other clinics until the end of the year but that it could be met with a “financial cliff” in the new year.
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Republicans in the nation’s capital and across the country have targeted Planned Parenthood over abortion services. (REUTERS/Gaelen Morse)
“We are planning for an environment where there is no federal funding,” Adams told CalMatters. “What that looks like is having to potentially charge patients some amount of money for services we provide.”
The organization has claimed that abortions make up only 3% of its services, but pro-life groups contend that the clinics’ closures in states with abortion bans prove that to be false.
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“If that were true, they wouldn’t be closing all these facilities in pro-life states where you can’t do abortions. So that’s hardly believable anymore in 2025,” 40 Days for Life CEO and founder Shawn Carney told Fox News Digital in August.
Newsom, California lawmakers and Planned Parenthood have spent much of the year searching for a solution to keep the organization afloat without federal dollars, according to CalMatters.
But with a multibillion-dollar state deficit, that has been a challenging goal.
