While Republican pro-life policies are most often blamed for—or credited with—the shuttering of 37 Planned Parenthood abortion clinics since January 2025, the reasons for the closures are more complex than defunding abortion through H. R. 271: The Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2025.
Abortion facility closures began long before the 2025 legislation and have as much to do with the availability of easy access to medication abortion as with any attempt by the Trump administration to restrict abortion funding to Planned Parenthood centers.
The Guttmacher Institute has been reporting on abortion clinic closures since 2020 and found that in 2023, there were 765 brick-and-mortar clinics providing abortion services in the United States, a 5% decline from 807 such clinics in 2020, which was years before the Republican Congress began its defunding initiative.
Demanding easy access to medication abortion, which accounted for 63% of all clinician-provided abortions last year, has greatly reduced the need for Planned Parenthood abortion facilities. It has also opened the abortion industry to a long list of competitors ready and willing to provide medication abortion without the inconvenience of having to visit a Planned Parenthood facility.
According to Caitlin Myers, a Middlebury College economics professor who maps brick-and-mortar abortion clinics across the United States, the rise of telehealth abortion has “put new pressures on the older-school, brick-and-mortar facilities”. Until a few years ago, doctors could prescribe abortion pills only in person. Those restrictions were lifted during COVID, but it was the Dobbs decision in 2022 that accelerated expansions in telehealth because it drew much attention to models of providing abortion services.
In a classic case of unintended consequences, Planned Parenthood saw new competition from online providers entering the field, advertising virtual consultations and pills shipped directly to women’s homes. The ability to bypass the Planned Parenthood clinic through the use of telemedicine has already diluted the political power that Planned Parenthood has historically enjoyed.
While women’s access to abortion through telehealth has increased, the pro-abortion politicians who have relied on the Planned Parenthood Action Fund to fill their campaign coffers are noticeably affected in this new era of virtual abortion clinics.
In the 2024 election cycle, Planned Parenthood advocacy and political organizations spent a record-breaking $69.5 million, engaging voters and supporting ballot measures related to abortion access. This included efforts to help elect candidates who support reproductive rights through their 2024 “We Decide” initiative, which targeted 14 states, including Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Planned Parenthood’s “We Decide” activities included engaging with voters through face-to-face conversations, phone calls, mail and digital advertising, and various events. While the Planned Parenthood Action Fund does not use federal funds for its lobbying activities and its “get out the vote” initiatives, its influence stems from mobilizing supporters, raising awareness about reproductive rights, and promoting policies to expand access to abortion.
The federal funds that have historically been given by the federal government for non-abortion services to the Planned Parenthood clinics freed up the abortion provider to use their privately donated money on abortion-related services since such funds are fungible.
All of this has benefited Democratic candidates, including Ruben Gallego (AZ), Adam Schiff (CA), Lisa Blunt Rochester (DE), Elissa Slotkin (MI), and Colin Allred (TX) in their bids for Senate in 2024. They were the Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s first non-incumbent Senate endorsements for 2024.
Meanwhile, Republican candidates have not received funding from Planned Parenthood in decades. Unsurprisingly, a coalition of 22 Democrat-led states has sued the Trump administration for the defunding. Filed in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts, the lawsuit argues that the temporary prohibition of Medicaid reimbursement at Planned Parenthood health centers that perform abortions is illegal.
Arguing that they should not be co-opted into executing what they see as an “unconstitutional provision,” the states claimed that the defunding would cause “widespread disruptions in preventative care and increase healthcare costs which, reports CNN,
would cause “widespread disruptions in preventative care and increase healthcare costs” and would result in “disproportionally affecting women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and communities of color…
Claiming that the Trump measure violates the Constitution by violating Planned Parenthood’s First Amendment rights by retaliating against its protected speech and advocacy, forcing states to “implement a vague, unrelated and coercive federal policy without clear notice; and singling out a group for punishment without due process.”
Just as unsurprisingly, a federal judge in Massachusetts has ruled in Planned Parenthood’s favor against the Trump administration. Judge Indira Talwani issued a ruling that found the law to be unconstitutional, noting that it singled out this one organization—Planned Parenthood—and violated its First Amendment rights by jeopardizing other kinds of healthcare, not just abortion care.
Protracted legal arguments are sure to be numerous. In the meantime, federal funding will continue to flow into Planned Parenthood’s coffers.
But, since federal funding is only a small part of Planned Parenthood’s problems, the pro-life side should take comfort in knowing that there is still reason to celebrate that 37 Planned Parenthood facilities have closed in the first six months of 2025 including the following: Gilroy, CA; Madera, CA; San Diego, CA; San Mateo, CA; Santa Cruz, CA; South San Francisco, CA; Bloomington, IL; Decatur, IL; Englewood, IL; Ottawa, IL; Evansville, IN; Ames, IA; Cedar Rapids, IA; Sioux City, IA; Urbandale, IA; Jackson, MI; Petoskey, MI; Marquette, MI; Ann Arbor, MI; Apple Valley, MN; Richfield, MN; Alexandria, MN; Bemidji, MN; West Charleston, Las Vegas, NV; East Flamingo, Las Vegas, NV; Bellmawr, NJ; Manhattan, NY; Springfield, OH; Hamilton, OH; Cleveland, OH; Moon Township, PA; Houston, TX; Tyler, TX; St. George, UT; Logan, UT; St. Johnsbury, VT.
The task now is to continue to try to change hearts and minds about abortion, including “medication” abortion. While polls indicate that almost 73% of Americans ages 18 to 29 support legal abortion, their support is less rigid and militant than that of the Baby Boom generation. Many of these Gen Zers are still forming their beliefs. Providing safe, non-judgmental spaces where they can ask questions and explore alternatives encourages genuine growth and transformation. Traditional authority figures are less persuasive than relatable peer voices, social media influencers, or content creators on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and emerging digital spaces.
All of these alternatives offer Gen Z an opportunity to reexamine their assumptions, especially as the influence of Planned Parenthood’s messaging wanes.
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Our state is Planned Parenthood free. Praise God. We have other troubles for sure but that one’s gone.
That is a blessing indeed! As you say elsewhere, brick by brick. I’m sad to say there is a PP “clinic” in my town, about a block away from a Catholic church with prominent signs for Project Gabriel.
I hope we come to our senses soon, but I suspect we are still within the “Three Days of Darkness”, which I take to be spiritual (and mental) blindness that will last for about 3 decades from our point of no return (possibly the 9/11 attacks were a final, but missed, call for national repentance).
I also suspect, though, that we will not be let off easily, even if we do regain our sight. I think of the German generals who realized, too late, that Hitler had to be stopped at all costs. They failed, and Hitler viewed their failure as a miracle; maybe it was the Devil’s kind of miracle, but I suspect that it had already been decreed that the war would not end without Berlin being reduced to a pile of rubble. So it may be with us … but we would still be far better off to recognize our condition and repent.
Let’s see if we’ve got this right: defunding PP is “disproportionately affecting… LGBTQ+ individuals…” Conceptual incest? LGBTQ is, itself, anti-binary and anti-birth.
And, then, in 2024 PP spent $69.5 million on political campaigns while also raking in $800 million in now-terminated federal funds. The biblical multiplication of bread!
And, too, the constitutional freedom of PP is violated by restricting it’s access to part of the $1.3 Trillion ($1,300 Billion) of fiat paper used to fill out the annual federal spending spree (29% of $6.5 Trillion annual “budget”)…
We then read that “The task now is to continue to try to change hearts and minds [of Generation Z] about abortion, including ‘medication’ abortion.”
True enough. The message should include something about miniaturization…the room-sized IBM mainframe computers that first sent men to the moon have been miniaturized into a computer chip; some 13.8 billion years ago the entire universe began unfolding from a unique and miniature singularity the size of “a point of zero size and infinite density;” each unique human person develops from a miniature and unique genome composed of three billion pairs of DNA (distinct from both the father and the mother…”it’s my body”?)…and anonymous/mail-order Mifepristone miniaturizes Auschwitz (346 acres) to the size of a pill in a home medicine cabinet.
Message for Generation Z…”Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
It has always been about hearts and minds. Death is, after all, only a physical evil, and we are right to hope that stillborn children, and miscarriages, and aborted children, are granted a fate better than the Limbo of Infants. DESIRING to murder the innocent, however, is a moral evil, the sort of thing that sends people to hell.
You can be certain that the closing of Planned Parenthood abortuariums have NOTHING to do with Democrats.
I agree, but it probably didn’t have a great deal to do with the Establishment GOP either.
The only thing that we can be certain of is nothing. 🫣
That’s Hey propaganda. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WjLjqHLgqY
I disagree.
right
Word to the wise: the Guttmacher Institute is the research arm of Planned Parenthood itself. Never cite them without double and triple checking the information, even if it seems innocuous, and never cite them unless you also mention exactly what they are and who they work for.
The closure of PP surgical abortion clinics, along with their attendant organizations of social support, is welcome. But inadequate.
Abortion, now medical, becomes solitary, cheap, anonymous, private, and unexamined. Not the place where “non-judgmental spaces” might encourage “genuine growth and transformation”. Wishful, but likely inadequate.
The program “to defend life from conception to natural death” has scarcely been implemented. Is it not then reasonable for the woman to doubt the integrity of a moral agency which decries abortion, on the one hand, and remains silent on the killing of comatose patients for their organs?
Who can speak to this?
One step at a time Dr.Miller. Inch by inch.
mrscracker: it’s possible for a war to have multiple fronts!
Absolutely Br. Jacques.
Needed is a broadly non-instrumental way of regarding the mystery that the universe even exists, rather than not. Even the mathematician Leibniz wondered: “Why is there anything, rather than nothing.” My God, a “religious” question from a co-inventor of The Calculus! About real contingency, guru Karl Marx megaphoned that “this question is not permitted [!] to socialist man!”
Not a backwardist return to the instinctive “enchantment” of the pagan world but, more deeply, a “sacral” universe pointing back to a singular God who both pervades and transcends all things. And, then maybe with a gifted and sacramental (say what?) connection to this Triune God. And, maybe then, the routinized extermination of innocent human lives, especially, will be seen for what it is and is not.
But, how does one reignite in the minds of Generation Z and the rest of us, a primal or shall we say an original state of real curiosity? Probably not with data-dump AI, or even synodal roundtable proceduralism managed by temporarily (?) demoted “facilitator” bishops. For the Church, then, how to be “communio” or an “ecclesial assembly”—as the Mystical Body of Christ—and therefore not embarrassed by the Apostolic Succession. St. Augustine had some clues…
Peter: you need to distill your knowledge and wisdom into poetry. You have much to offer.
Ceasar is sending too many checks so we don’t check him on most things; we turn the other cheek and look the other way for the wrong reason(s)
Dear doctor. I agree with most of what you said about the closure of PP abortion factories. However, in this article, I see no mention of the health plight of the mother.
Texas leads the way in abortion restrictions. Since the Texas law was implemented in 2021, the deaths of mothers who needed a lifesaving abortions has risen by 56%.
Texas Tribune: “Rates of pregnancy-related sepsis and deaths grow in Texas after abortion ban.” The Texas Legislature was overwhelmed by citizen complaints, they were “forced” to modify the restrictions.
NPR: “State lawmakers out of Texas say a newly passed law called the Life of the Mother Act should clarify for doctors in the state where to draw the line. Reproductive rights advocates and medical groups are watching to see if it saves lives.”
I remember when a Texas woman who needed a medically determined abortion had to travel to another state. The doctor who determined her need was threatened by AG Ken Paxton. Paxton is still facing charges that he acknowledged having had an extramarital affair.
Let’s hope that Jesus will guide medical science experts to develop a medication that provides a healthy birth for both mother and baby.
Thank you.
Mr. Morgan,
That TX mother did not need to travel out of state for medical reasons. She had to travel out of state for eugenic purposes in order to take the life of her disabled child. Disabled children do not threaten the lives of their mothers.
Sorry mrs.
Kate Cox, a 31-year-old MOTHER OF TWO, had spent nearly a week seeking court permission in Texas to end her pregnancy, but her attorneys said she could not wait any longer and left the state. Her baby has a condition known as trisomy 18, which has low survival rates, and her lawsuit argued that continuing the pregnancy jeopardized both her health and ability to have more children.
Defying the decision by her doctor, Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, a non-doctor who is facing legal actions, argued that Cox had not shown that any of the complications in her pregnancy rose to the level of threatening her life.
Reality strikes again.
Trisomy 18 does not jeopardize a mother’s life Mr. Morgan, it’s only life limiting to the child affected by the disability. Nor did it jeopardize the mother’s ability to have more children. She announced she was expecting another child last year.
Can you imagine what her late term, preborn child suffered before being removed piece by piece? Where were the baby’s rights in all this & where is our compassion?
To your point about future fertility being put in jeopardy, you can not take a child’s life to protect fertility.
People use the legal system arbitrarily, she didn’t have to sue, she could have just gone and done what she did anyway.
Texas AG would have had to present medical evidence or prove well-grounded Texas law. The appeal and decision were right an true.
LIFESITE is covering Trisomy 18 and has other informative articles for you to search and find for your own advantage.
‘ However, Texas Right to Life noted that the evidence put forth by the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), which is representing Cox and Karsan, “does not show that Cox’s status is emergent without life-affirming alternatives for both her and the baby,” and that medical experts attested that she does not qualify for a so-called “medically necessary abortion.” ‘
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/texas-supreme-court-abortion-trisomy/
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/american-academy-of-pediatrics-now-acknowledges-trisomy-13-18-are-not-incompatible-with-life/
Dr. Miller above (1:16 p.m.) – “. . . a moral agency which decries abortion, on the one hand, and remains silent on the killing of comatose patients for their organs?”
Which agency are you referring to?
Cleo: The agency which can speak, formally or infallibly, on matters of Faith and Morals. The agency which chooses to remain silent on organ harvesting.
As surgical abortion becomes less available, when contraception doesn’t pan out as expected and the pregnancy sustains, people will have recourse to illegal means to abort. This will be illegal surgical abortion and illegal chemical.
I don’t just mean “illegal” of course, they would be crime.
How are these going to be dealt with if you do not have the will to prosecute the crimes. And if you are spurning the common law or inherited State law against abortion. And if you legislate to protect abortion and contraception here or there in parts. Etc.
And if old political/a-political pastimes and bad habits remain in vogue. Keeping it as a “public policy voter determined issue”?
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2015/01/22/the-pro-life-movement-is-youthful-and-strong-abortion-rates-are-falling-but-house-republicans-dont-seem-to-get-it/