Biden admin allocates $6 million more for family planning clinics

The Biden administration is giving clinics that provide free and subsidized family planning services an additional $6 million, the White House announced in a memo Tuesday, as part of the broader response to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and more than a dozen states moving to outlaw abortion.

The new grants for the Research-to-Practice, Teen Pregnancy Prevention and Title X programs were announced ahead of President Joe Biden’s meeting Tuesday with his Task Force on Reproductive Healthcare Access.

Providers in Florida, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina and Wisconsin will receive the supplemental funds, the Department of Health and Human Services told POLITICO. Of those states, only Florida, North Carolina and Wisconsin have implemented new abortion restrictions since the fall of Roe.

Demand for vasectomies, IUDs and other long-acting birth control methods has surged across the country since Roe was overturned in June, and both medical providers and the Biden administration have asked Congress to significantly increase the amount of annual funding for Title X from about $286 to $400 million.

Title X provides contraception, STD testing and other services to nearly 2 million low-income people each year.

The administration allocated an extra $3 million for the program a few days after the Supreme Court ruling, but providers say it’s far from enough — particularly as sexual health clinics have also had to shoulder much of the country’s monkeypox testing and vaccination work.

The memo announcing the funding, drafted by the White House’s Gender Policy Council director Jen Klein, also said the Department of Education will be releasing guidance for universities “reiterating Title IX’s requirement that institutions protect their students from discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, including pregnancy termination."