Planned Parenthood’s Philly chapter criticizes city budget for not backfilling federal cuts: ‘It felt like a gut punch’

Amid Trump administration funding cuts, local Planned Parenthood leaders say they are disappointed that the newly approved city budget did not include a line item for sexual and reproductive health care.

The $6.8 billion budget deal was approved on June 12, in a series of 15-1 votes. It provides for gradual wage and business tax cuts, along with funding for Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s housing plan, but does not include an appropriation for Planned Parenthood.

“We felt incredibly confident this time around and did not expect this at all,” says Signe Espinoza, executive director at Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania Advocates. “It felt like a gut punch.”

In 2024, Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania received $500,000 in municipal funds from the Democratic-led city. An additional $450,000 was awarded to other nonprofits aimed at expanding reproductive care. This year, Planned Parenthood requested a $1 million grant — double the previous allocation.

Dayle Steinberg, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania, said the organization is currently “in the federal administration’s crosshairs.” This March, Philadelphia’s two busiest Planned Parenthood centers lost a total of $332,000 in Title X money because of a Trump administration funding freeze.

Now, Steinberg said, the organization is bracing itself for the loss of even more federal dollars, after the U.S. House passed a budget bill that could block Medicaid reimbursements to some family planning and reproductive health nonprofits.

Espinoza said that, in the lead-up to the vote, Planned Parenthood met with Council members, including Kendra Brooks, leader of the city’s Reproductive Freedom Task Force and member of the progressive Working Families Party.

Councilmember Brooks cast the lone “no” vote on the budget, saying that the plan did not do enough to protect Philadelphians. (Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke, also part of the Working Families Party, was absent from the vote due to a family medical emergency, but has said he also opposed this year’s budget.)

“City Council took a major step forward in last year’s budget with the first-ever direct funding for Planned Parenthood and continued funding for the Abortion Liberation Fund,” Brooks said during the final Council session on June 12. “Now, at the same time congressional Republicans are set to slash funding for Planned Parenthood nationwide, funding for our local chapter of Planned Parenthood has disappeared.”

A joint statement shared by Brooks and O’Rourke also cited federal cuts, saying that “this budget ignores that reality.”

Joe Grace, a spokesperson for Parker’s administration, said “the City does not have the budget capacity to cover federal funding reductions.” The proposed line item was abandoned after months of public hearings and “collaborative budget negotiations” between the offices of the mayor and the Council president.

The Philadelphia Department of Health offers family planning and sexual health services at health centers around the city, Grace said. Eight of the centers offer Pap smears, medical gynecological procedures, mammograms, and contraception. Two centers provide confidential testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections. The city also funds and operates a network of community-based HIV testing sites.

According to Steinberg and Espinoza, more than 20,000 Philadelphians receive healthcare services from Planned Parenthood annually. Since the Title X funding freeze, the organization has had to cut nonclinical expenses to continue to provide care.

“Most of the patients that we see are unaware that the funding has been cut,” Steinberg said. “There’s no health provider that could fill the gap for what Planned Parenthood provides. We would have to find some funding to keep delivering the services.”