IPM: Here We Go Again: They’re Using Appropriations to Attack Sexual and Reproductive Health Care Domestically and Globally

TO: Interested Parties

FROM: Planned Parenthood Action Fund

RE: Here We Go Again: They’re Using Appropriations to Attack Sexual and Reproductive Health Care Domestically and Globally

Once again, anti-abortion rights politicians in Congress are manipulating the federal appropriations process to push for a recycled slate of dangerous and unpopular provisions to block access to sexual and reproductive health care across the country and around the world. 

Last week, the House advanced a number of funding bills, including the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs (SFOPs); and Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (LHHS) bills, both of which would severely restrict access to sexual and reproductive health care, including by eliminating the Title X Family Planning program and reinstating the Trump era expanded global gag rule. 

They’re also resurrecting the same tired attempt to “defund” Planned Parenthood, blocking people who access care through public health programs from accessing essential services like STI testing and treatment, cancer screenings, and birth control, at Planned Parenthood health centers. Planned Parenthood health centers serve over 2 million patients every year, and 76% of Planned Parenthood health centers are located in health professional shortage areas, rural, and medically underserved communities. To put it simply, trying to “defund” Planned Parenthood means trying to take away access to essential health care for people they likely represent. 

And when it comes to communities around the world, 218 million women in low and middle-income countries want to delay or prevent pregnancy but face significant barriers to using modern contraceptive methods. An estimated 287,000 women die each year from pregnancy-related causes, including unsafe abortion, which continues to be a major, preventable cause of unacceptably high global maternal mortality rates. Global inequities and unmet needs have been further exacerbated by the multiple ongoing global humanitarian crises — and will only be made worse by the harmful funding cuts and devastating policy restrictions contained in the House-passed bill. 

In all, anti-abortion rights politicians continue to act in defiance of the vast majority of their constituents who believe that the government has no right to control people’s personal health care decisions with attacks on abortion, birth control, and gender-affirming care.

According to a new data analysis released by Planned Parenthood Action Fund earlier this week, 43% of women of reproductive age, plus trans and nonbinary people, live in states that ban or limit abortion — that’s 28 million women. More than half of Black women, trans and nonbinary people of reproductive age live in those same states. That’s 54% or 4.8 million women, most of whom live in the South where the closest abortion clinic is as many as three states away.

Politicians have consistently lost seats and ballot initiatives — in Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, Michigan, California and Vermont — when running on an anti-reproductive freedom agenda, but while still in power they continue to do unconscionable harm. 

Here are just some of the attacks on sexual and reproductive health that anti-abortion rights House members have packed into the Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 House Appropriations Bills (so far)*: 

• The Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies bill, introduced last week, included measures designed to:
  • “Defund” Planned Parenthood, blocking people who rely on public health programs from accessing critical preventive services at Planned Parenthood health centers.
  • Eliminate funding for the Title X family planning program.
  • Eliminate funding for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, while funding abstinence-only-until-marriage programs.
  • Restrict access to gender-affirming care.
  • Prohibit Medicaid from covering abortion through the discriminatory Hyde Amendment, and continue the harmful Weldon Amendment.
  • Block Biden administration executive orders intended to increase access to abortion care post-Dobbs decision.
  • Interfere with postgraduate training in abortion care, an essential component of medical education necessary to ensure the health and well-being of pregnant people.
• The State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs bill, which passed the House last week, included measures designed to:
  • Cap funding for international family planning and reproductive health programs at $461 million, a nearly 25% cut.
  • Ban funding for UNFPA, the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency and permanently and legislatively impose the Trump administration’s expanded version of the global gag rule.
  • Restrict information about and access to gender-affirming care.
  • Maintain the Helms Amendment in addition to restrictions on abortion coverage for Peace Corps Volunteers.
• The Defense bill, which also passed the House last week, included measures designed to:
  • Reverse Department of Defense (DOD) policy safeguarding access to reproductive health care, including abortion, for service members and their families.
  • Attack access to gender-affirming care for service members and their families.
    • Anti-abortion rights lawmakers recently included similar measures in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) — an annual must-pass bill.
• The Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies bill, passed recently, included measures designed to:
  • Overturn a rule issued by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA) that allows the VA to provide veterans and their eligible dependents abortion care in certain circumstances.
  • Ban coverage and provision of abortion care through the VA in all but narrow exceptions.
  • Attack access to gender-affirming care for veterans and their families.
• The Homeland Security bill, which also passed last week, included measures designed to:
  • Ban coverage and provision of abortion care for individuals under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody except in very narrow exceptions, dangerously jeopardizing the health of people in detention. 
  • Attacks gender-affirming care for people in ICE custody. 
• The Financial Services and General Government bill, recently marked up in Committee, included measures designed to:
  • Overturn a District of Columbia law protecting employees from being fired for their personal reproductive health care decisions. 
  • Ban coverage of abortion for federal employees and their dependents who access health care through the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), with very limited exceptions. 
  • Ban the District of Columbia from using local funds to cover abortion services, except under very limited circumstances, under its version of the Medicaid program. 
• The Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies bill introduced last week included measures designed to:
  • Ban abortion coverage for people detained in federal prisons with very narrow exceptions. 
  • Block DOJ from suing any state or local government over their abortion laws. 

* Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s review of the various amendments and proposals put forth in the FY25 appropriations process is ongoing.

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Planned Parenthood Action Fund is an independent, nonpartisan, not-for-profit membership organization formed as the advocacy and political arm of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. The Action Fund engages in educational, advocacy, and limited electoral activity, including grassroots organizing, legislative advocacy, and voter education.