'Thin ice': How Trump's new pro-natalist stance threatens reproductive care

As the Trump administration considers ways to encourage Americans to have more children — from a $5,000 “baby bonus” to a “National Medal of Motherhood” — both anti-abortion and abortion-rights clinics face uncertainty about how such policies might affect their federal funding.

For groups like Planned Parenthood, which provide abortions, contraceptives, sexually transmitted infection testing and other health services, the outlook appears bleak. Clinics have started shuttering following a freeze of tens of millions of dollars in federal funds.

“They're already struggling right now,” said Kristyn Brandi, a former board chair of Physicians for Reproductive Health and an OB-GYN who provides abortions in New Jersey, where some Planned Parenthood clinics have been laying off staff.

“They're already on thin ice, and I worry that any further pushes to decrease their funding could cause a lot of places to close,” Brandi added. “That ultimately only hurts patients. A lot of people are going to lose access to essential health care services because of it.”

Pregnancy help centers or crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) run by anti-abortion organizations aren’t counting on federal funds either. Such centers offer free testing, ultrasounds and social services to pregnant women but steer patients away from abortions and contraception.

The administration's “pro-family stance” is encouraging, Andrea Trudden, vice president of communications and marketing for Heartbeat International, a pregnancy help network, told Raw Story.

“If opportunities arise, we will notify the pregnancy health organizations about the opportunities, and it'll be up to each and every one of them whether or not it is right for their community and for their organization,” Trudden said.

“But if there are policies that are implemented throughout the administration that pregnancy health organizations could benefit from, we would definitely be certain that people are aware of them and see how we can utilize them in order to encourage life and encourage families.”

The White House did not answer Raw Story’s questions about federal funding for pregnancy centers. Instead, it emailed a statement from Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.

“President Trump is proudly implementing policies to uplift American families, from securing order [at the] border to keep violent criminals out of our communities, to lowering taxes and the cost of living,” Leavitt said. “The President wants America to be a country where all children can safely grow up and achieve the American dream. As a mother myself, I am proud to work for a president who is taking significant action to leave a better country for the next generation.”

‘Red and blue mentality’

Health clinics that provide abortions and anti-abortion pregnancy centers have both historically received federal funding through grants that support low-income families and family planning services.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office found that Planned Parenthood affiliates received about $148 million in federal grants and $1.54 billion in government insurance payments from 2019 through 2021.

The research firm Health Management Associates (HMA) found that 650 CPCs received more than $429 million in federal funds between 2017 and 2023. Generally, such clinics do not bill insurance, offering services for free.

Aid for Women pregnancy center in Chicago's Edgewater neighborhood (Photo by Alexandria Jacobson/Raw Story)

The majority of federal funding provided to CPCs from 2017-23 (more than $289 million) came via the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act of 2020 and 2021. More than $102 million was provided through Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) grants, according to HMA.

Federal funds distributed to health centers and pregnancy clinics through block grants like TANF will typically follow state political alignment, with Republican-leaning states more often directing funds to crisis pregnancy centers and Democratic-leaning states funding Planned Parenthood clinics, experts told Raw Story.

“It follows this ‘red and blue’ mentality of Planned Parenthood not being properly funded if it's in a red state, and CPCs are receiving more funding in a red state, and vice versa,” said George Carrillo, former director of social determinants of health for the Oregon Health Authority. “It's pretty rare to see where there's equal dollar amounts being able to provide services from both sides — from the CPC side and from institutions like Planned Parenthood.”

Neither crisis pregnancy centers nor health centers that provide abortions should get any federal funding, said Herbie Newell, president and executive director of Lifeline Children’s Services, a “pro-life” Christian ministry that supports pregnancy counseling and adoption services.

“I have a strong feeling that no pregnancy center should be getting government funding,” Newell said. “We don't really need to be overreaching into ideologies, and therefore, the government telling anyone what they should or shouldn't believe.”

‘Pro-natalist goals’

Heartbeat International’s network of more than 3,000 pregnancy help centers gets 90 percent of its funding from private donations and grants, Trudden said. CPCs are often unregulated and nonmedical, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, but they are overseen by medical directors and follow privacy best practices, Trudden said.

Federal funding is “not something that we depend on or ever have,” Trudden said. “We have a great deal of people within communities that offer their support, and that actually helps so much because then it raises awareness and lets them know of the services that we offer right there in their backyard. [Federal funding is] not off the table, but it definitely isn't something that we depend on because we know that with every administration it has the risk of going away.”

Sonographer technician holds an ultrasound transducer to diagnose the condition of a pregnant woman with a view of the woman's uterus on the computer screen. (Shutterstock)

Julie Rabinovitz, principal at Health Management Associates who led research on CPC funding, said predicting how much federal funding the centers might receive in the future is challenging.

“I think it's really hard to say given it's the beginning of the administration,” Rabinovitz told Raw Story. “You have DOGE [the Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk], so they're trying to reduce federal spending in a lot of areas, yet we don't know where this administration is right now on any of these issues, so we'll have to see what happens.”

Brandi, the abortion provider from New Jersey, expects funds will “definitely” continue to be cut from Planned Parenthood and that the Trump administration has “all the tools that they need to really empower CPCs.”

“It is all in alignment with their pro-natalist goals,” Brandi said. “Likely CPCs will be funded more without ironically improving things like IVF or prenatal/maternal health care.”

Lisa Battisfore, founder of Reproductive Transparency Now, an organization that campaigns against CPCs, said she “absolutely” expects to see an increasing number of crisis pregnancy centers and “more effort to get taxpayer funding to them.”

“We already know that the Trump administration is in support of anti-abortion organizations, including crisis pregnancy centers. They are part of the framework with Project 2025, which is what is being executed here,” Battisfore said, referring to the policy plan for a second Trump administration produced by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

“Preventing people from accessing abortion is going to contribute, to some extent, to this birth rate strategy.”

From Musk to Vice President J.D. Vance, Trump administration leaders have made it clear that “more babies in the United States of America” is a priority amid global birth rate declines.

However, Karla Torres, senior counsel for U.S. human rights at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told Raw Story the Trump administration had actually made it “more dangerous to be pregnant and more expensive to have and raise children in the United States.”

“There is a maternal mortality crisis in this country, and it is overwhelmingly killing Black and Indigenous women,” Torres said. “Pregnant people are bleeding out in parking lots after being turned away from emergency rooms in states that ban abortion.

“But instead of increasing access to resources proven to protect pregnant people, this administration is defunding critical research, firing federal public health workers, and dismissing lawsuits to enforce federal laws that require hospitals to provide emergency abortions — all while considering sweepstake-style incentives to encourage people to have more babies. The Administration's calculation is horrifying and on full display.”