Planned Parenthood is closing more facilities — this time, in rural areas of Utah. Earlier this year, Planned Parenthood announced the planned closure of one of its facilities in Vermont, four facilities in Illinois, one in Manhattan, and three in Michigan.
The Salt Lake Tribune reported that two facilities will be closed in Utah, claiming this is as a result of the Trump administration’s decision to temporarily freeze family planning funding to nine Planned Parenthood affiliates, along with seven other Title X funding recipients. The facilities slated to close are the two most rural, located in Logan and St. George. The state has six remaining Planned Parenthood facilities.
The closures in other states were not initiated due to a Title X funding freeze.
During his first administration, Trump enacted the “Protect Life Rule,” which required organizations receiving Title X funding to both physically and fiscally separate their family planning services from their abortion-related business, including abortion referrals. The Biden administration disbanded that rule, and as of now, the Trump administration has not said whether or not it will be reinstated. For the moment, however, approximately $20 million in taxpayer funding is being withheld from various Planned Parenthood centers and affiliates.
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Planned Parenthood Association of Utah (PPAU) received $2,230,290 in funding through Title X in 2024. The abortion chain reportedly committed 2,676 abortions in 2024, up from the 2,123 in 2023 and 2,317 in 2021. According to the Tribune, Planned Parenthood was slated to receive roughly $2.8 million in Title X funding this year.
“When the Title X news came to us, we were unhappy, shocked in a way, but not surprised,” Sarah Stoesz, interim CEO for Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, told the Tribune. “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.”
Stoesz then claimed that this would rob Utahns of their ability to receive health care.
“We have been around for so long in Utah and in this country 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 said. “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.”
Yet nationwide, Planned Parenthood serves just 2% of American women of reproductive age, and its annual reports show that its legitimate health care services have plummeted even as their abortions hit record highs. More than 60 Federally Qualified Health Centers are located in Utah, providing care to low-income individuals, including the services provided by Planned Parenthood — excluding abortions.
In Utah, abortion is not restricted until 18 weeks of pregnancy. The state does have parental notification/consent laws in place for minors under 18.
Since the year 2000, Planned Parenthood as a whole has committed over 7.1 million abortions and commits an average of more than 1,000 abortions each day. According to its own reports, it commits 62 abortions for every one woman who receives prenatal care. Planned Parenthood has also failed to report instances of child sexual abuse and trafficking, yet the chain continues to receive nearly $700 million in taxpayer funding annually.
In 2024, the Salt Lake City Planned Parenthood facility was accused by a former patient of coercing her into having an abortion, even when she did not want it, and told her abortion pill reversal was not a possibility. Thankfully, she did not take the second pill, and her baby survived. In 2023, Planned Parenthood in Utah caused outrage by infiltrating classrooms without parental knowledge or consent. In 2016, accused rapist Jose Cazares-Montalvo (34 at the time) allegedly took his 15-year-old victim to three Utah Planned Parenthood locations for an abortion; Planned Parenthood staff refused him due to parental consent restrictions, but helped to cover up his crimes by failing to report the incidents to authorities.
