Every year for the last half-century, thousands of the poorest Utahns have turned to Planned Parenthood for free or discounted family planning health care, like birth control or testing for sexually transmitted infections.
But under a directive from President Donald Trump’s administration to freeze the federal funds that helped pay for those services, Planned Parenthood Association of Utah was forced to raise its fees earlier this month. And now, it will close a quarter of its clinics in the state — the two furthest from Salt Lake City, and ones most accessible to some of Utah’s most rural residents.
“When the Title X news came to us, we were unhappy, shocked in a way, but not surprised,” said Sarah Stoesz, the interim CEO for Planned Parenthood Association of Utah. “We’ve been giving it a lot of thought for some time, and had been creating contingency plans. We didn’t know how deep the cut would be, we didn’t know how permanent it might be.”
According to Planned Parenthood, it provided services to 26,000 Utah patients using Title X funds at clinics last year. The organization was slated to receive $2.8 million toward that care this year.
The Logan clinic will close on April 30 and the St. George location will shut its doors on May 2.
The shuttering of clinics comes about a month after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services informed nine Planned Parenthood state affiliates that their approved Title X grants were being “temporarily withheld,” Politico reported.
Interim President Shireen Ghorbani said, “This is not a decision we have made lightly. This is a decision we are forced to make because of the Trump administration.”
Planned Parenthood Association of Utah is the only Title X recipient in the Beehive State, meaning Utahns are losing the entirety of the more than $2 million set aside to help them seek care. According to an analysis by KFF Health News, Utah is one of seven states to have all of its Title X funds blocked.
Signed into law by Republican President Richard Nixon in 1970, the program is meant to empower low-income Americans to establish healthy families by connecting them to resources that allow them to plan when and how many children they have. It also covers disease prevention.
Since its inception, none of the money distributed through Title X could be used to pay for abortions.
“We have been around for so long in Utah and in this country,” Stoesz said, “that we have served women who are now in their 60s and 70s, and we have served their daughters, and we are serving their granddaughters.”
She continued, “That service, that ability to get the health care that they need, has opened the door to infinite possibility for infinite numbers of people, and it is a terrible, terrible shame and a stain on this current administration and political leadership here in Utah and all across the country that this is being permitted to happen.”
Letters HHS sent in March, according to Politico, pointed to alleged “possible violations” of federal civil rights law and Trump’s executive orders barring efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion. They also cited the organization’s practice of providing medical care to immigrants without permanent legal status, what it termed “taxpayer subsidization of open borders.”
Planned Parenthood Association of Utah declined to share copies of correspondence with HHS regarding its Title X grant with The Salt Lake Tribune, citing legal concerns. A spokesperson confirmed that the organization was notified grant money would not come on March 31.
In response to emailed questions about the status of Utah’s grant, and whether the agency could provide the letters detailing its reasons for withholding it, an HHS official wrote in an email, “On background to an HHS official: Some Title X grantees received notification that their grants were paused pending a compliance review. Each of the organizations with grants on hold received a detailed letter explaining the reason for the pause in funding and requesting documentation within 10 days to assess compliance with grant terms and conditions.”
According to its spokesperson, Planned Parenthood Association of Utah submitted a response reaffirming that the organization is operating in compliance with Title X before the April 10 deadline. It has not yet heard back from the Trump administration.
It’s clear that Planned Parenthood is being targeted by Trump, said Amy Friedrich-Karnik, the director of federal policy at sexual health and reproductive rights think tank Guttmacher Institute. But when it comes to the other recipients whose funding is in jeopardy and the states impacted, Friedrich-Karnik said the decisions seem random.
The future of the program, altogether, is uncertain. Inside Health Policy reported last week that a leaked White House draft budget proposes eliminating the office that runs the Title X program.
This isn’t the first time Planned Parenthood — including Utah’s chapter —has had its access to Title X funds cut off by Trump. After his last administration changed Title X requirements to block grant recipients from referring patients to doctors who can perform abortions, which critics call the “gag rule,” affiliates across the country withdrew from the program.
Utah’s affiliate also joined a lawsuit challenging the move, an option the organization said is once again on the table. Utah rejoined the program after President Joe Biden took office and undid Trump’s refashioning of the law.
‘Because ... I had access to care’
The closing clinics in Utah, which are the association’s northernmost and southernmost, are both within walking distance of university campuses — the Logan one near Utah State University, and the St. George location in the neighborhood of Utah Tech University.
The two locations collectively serve thousands of patients annually. The most common services sought there are birth control and testing for sexually transmitted infections and diseases.
While the southern Utah location has never offered abortion care, the Logan clinic provides medicated abortion. It is also a 20-minute drive from the Idaho border, which has one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country. According to Planned Parenthood Association of Utah’s annual report, the organization cared for 233 Idaho patients last year.
The CDC tracks who benefits from Title X through its Family Planning Annual Report. In Utah, 41% of the nearly 20,000 patients in 2023 lived below the poverty line, and 47% were uninsured.
“When you attack this one program, the ripple effect is huge, and people’s access to health care overall is compromised,” Friedrich-Karnik said.
Sentiments included in reviews left for the clinics on Google reflect the story told by CDC numbers.
“Went in for an STI screening without an appointment and they fit me only had to wait about 30 minutes,” one patient who gave the Logan health center five stars wrote. “Everyone I interacted with was polite, knowledgeable, and courteous. I don’t have health insurance and they were able [to] help with financial assistance towards the cost of the tests.”
Another review for the St. George clinic said, “It’s never very crowded and the ladies at the front desk [are] ANGELS! They are. They help you so much and don’t pressure you if you can’t afford to pay.”
For the patients who rely on Planned Parenthood, there are few alternatives. That’s true across the country, Friedrich-Karnik said.
“In many communities, if Planned Parenthood were to shut down, there is not really many other options for folks who are low-income, who face access barriers to care, to be able to receive these services,” she said. “It’s a huge blow to communities that already face substantial barriers to care, whether it’s rural communities, low-income folks, LGBTQ folks [or] young people.”
As Planned Parenthood Association of Utah loses its grant funding, it faces other financial hurdles.
The cost of staffing its clinics has increased as medical facilities across the country confront health care worker shortages. In 2023, Planned Parenthood’s Logan clinic closed for several months because it did not have enough providers to operate.
Slashes to Medicaid being eyed by Congress would be another hit.
For now, the organization will work to raise money from private donors to subsidize as much care as it can.
Like the attacks Planned Parenthood has seen on the national level, it has also faced retaliation from Utah officials as it sues to stop a near-total abortion ban in the state. That law is blocked, and abortion is currently legal up to 18 weeks.
Lawmakers earlier this year blocked the organization from providing sex education in the state, and in a previous session attempted to ban abortion clinics from operating. They later repealed that law after it was blocked in court and would have likely delayed a ruling in the larger abortion ban lawsuit.
“[The government] doesn’t seem to understand that the very reason that I never had to seek abortion care ... is because I had information, and I had access to care,” Ghorbani, describing the ways she has benefitted from Title X services she received when she was younger, said.
