JD Vance signals Trump administration will defund Planned Parenthood

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 7, 2024 / 15:30 pm

Speaking to reporters after the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance signaled that a second Trump administration will seek to defund Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood, which is the largest abortion provider in the U.S., took in nearly $700 million in tax-funded government grants, contracts, and Medicaid reimbursements in 2023, accounting for 34% of its total revenue, according to Planned Parenthood’s latest report.

Vance, who was responding to a question from RealClearPolitics, signaled that Planned Parenthood’s government funding may soon come to an end.

“On the question of defunding Planned Parenthood,” Vance said, “our view is we don’t think that taxpayers should fund-late term abortions. That has been a consistent view of the Trump campaign the first time around. It will remain a consistent view.”

Pro-life leaders have been calling on former president Donald Trump to make defunding Planned Parenthood a priority if he is reelected to the White House.

In 2018, the first Trump administration attempted to remove $60 million in funding from Planned Parenthood by making changes to the federal family planning program called Title X. The change was held up in court and ultimately rolled back under the Biden administration.

At the time of publication, the Trump campaign had not responded to CNA’s request for specifics on how the administration would renew its efforts to defund Planned Parenthood.

Vance’s comment follows months of the Trump campaign largely avoiding the abortion issue. It offers some of the first insight into what actions a second Trump administration would take to protect unborn life.

Both Vance and Trump have repeatedly said that abortion is exclusively a state issue. They have also called Democrats “radical” for legalizing abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, accusing them of even allowing infanticide.

In response to Vance’s announcement, the Washington Post reported Jenny Lawson, executive director of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, claimed that defunding Planned Parenthood “would only deepen and expand the public health crisis we’re already in thanks to Donald Trump, causing more people to suffer and die for lack of basic reproductive care.”

Lawson pointed out that the Hyde Amendment already prohibits federal funds from being directly used for abortion.

Lauren Hitt, a spokesperson for the Kamala Harris campaign, told NBC News that “a second Trump term is too big a risk for American women and their families” and that “the only way to stop an unchecked Trump and his MAGA allies from ripping away freedoms from American women is to elect Vice President Harris, who will defend women’s access to health care and reproductive freedom.”

Meanwhile, Kristi Hamrick, a representative for the national pro-life group Students for Life Action, compared tax-dollar funding for Planned Parenthood a “cancer” in the federal budget. She called Vance’s announcement “good news.” 

According to Hamrick, Students for Life has been in contact with the Trump campaign and has been urging the former president to commit to defunding Planned Parenthood. 

“Students for Life Action has taken President Trump at his word, that he wants to end federal engagement with abortion,” Hamrick told CNA. “That begins with ending federal funding, because as long as you are using federal tax dollars to pay for something, the issue is federal.”

She also said Students for Life has called for the Trump campaign to urge voters to vote “no” in all 10 of the state abortion initiatives on the ballot this November.

“The GOP said in their platform that they did not support late-term abortion — and that is empowered by those extreme measures,” she said.

Planned Parenthood performed 392,715 abortions in 2023, according to its 2023 report. According to a Pew Research Center study published this year, about 1% of U.S. abortions — 9,301 — were late-term abortions, taking place at 21 weeks or after.