As Washington tightens the purse strings, two of America’s most populous states are digging into their own coffers to keep Planned Parenthood afloat.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul and California Governor Gavin Newsom announced that their states would cover the funding gap left by the federal government’s recent Medicaid cuts — a decision that effectively froze out Planned Parenthood and similar organizations still providing abortion services.
The Republican-led Congress pushed through the measure this summer, cutting Medicaid ties with any nonprofit offering abortions, even if the procedures were funded separately. Planned Parenthood fought back in court, but a federal appeals panel upheld the restrictions last month, leaving the nation’s largest reproductive health provider scrambling.
Hochul responded swiftly, pledging over $35 million to replace a year’s worth of lost Medicaid funds in New York. Newsom went even further — committing $140 million to sustain the organization’s work in California.
“California remains a reproductive freedom state,” Newsom declared. “This investment is about protecting essential care when access is under attack.”
Planned Parenthood operates 47 health centers in New York and over 100 in California, serving millions through services that go well beyond abortions — including cancer screenings, contraception, and STI testing.
But the political undercurrents are unmistakable. President Donald Trump’s spending bill in July was celebrated by conservatives who have long sought to dismantle federal support for the organization. Planned Parenthood’s spokesperson Angela Vasquez-Giroux accused the bill of trying to “shut down health centers and strip essential care from patients across the nation.”
For decades, federal law has already barred direct funding for abortion procedures. Yet the latest maneuver marks a deeper ideological divide — one that pits states like New York and California as guardians of reproductive access against a federal government intent on restricting it.
Three years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and just one year after it upheld access to the abortion pill mifepristone, the nation’s battle over reproductive rights shows no signs of cooling — only shifting battlegrounds.
