By Jenna SundelShareNewsweek is a Trust Project memberPresident Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday that he had not heard that his administration restored funding to Planned Parenthood.
“I have not heard that,” Trump said when asked by a reporter about the release of frozen funds.
...The National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA) announced on Tuesday that it voluntarily dismissed a lawsuit against the Trump administration after the government restored all Title X family planning grants that were the subject of the litigation.
The lawsuit was filed last year by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the ACLU of D.C. on behalf of the NFPRHA after federal officials alerted 16 organizations, including Planned Parenthood affiliates, that the department was freezing $27.5 million to investigate whether they are complying with the law.
Newsweek reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services for comment.
Why It Matters
The NFPRHA said the withholding of funds left approximately 865 family planning service sites unable to provide Title X-funded services to an estimated 842,000 patients across nearly two dozen states.
“The Trump administration illegally withheld vital family planning funds that federal grantees were relying on to provide time-sensitive, critical care to hundreds of thousands of people in need,” Clare Coleman, president & CEO of NFPRHA, said in a statement.
Republicans have long criticized the hundreds of millions of dollars that flow every year under the Title X program to Planned Parenthood and its clinics, the Associated Press reported.
What To Know
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro and Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie R. Johnson said in a status report filed on December 19, 2025, that “all grants at issue for Plaintiff’s members have been restored” following a review. Pirro and Johnson said the defendants in the case anticipated that funds would be released during the week of December 22, 2025.
“Defendants will confer with Plaintiff’s counsel to determine if this matter can be voluntarily dismissed in light of the restoration of the remaining grants,” Pirro and Johnson wrote.
When the funds were frozen last year, the Department of Health and Human Services did not specify which laws or executive orders the groups were suspected of violating. In a December 19, 2025, letter to the organizations, the agency noted that the standard terms in the Notice of Award state, “You must administer your project in compliance with federal civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, [and] national origin.”
The agency said that the grantees have complied with federal law.
What People Are Saying
Clare Coleman, president & CEO of NFPRHA, in a statement: “Our lawsuit succeeded in holding the administration accountable for its unlawful acts, and today, NFPRHA members’ grants have been restored. We are relieved all of our members now have access to their promised funds, but we know the fight for contraceptive access in this country goes on. We will continue to stand up for our members and the essential care they provide to millions of individuals.”
Arthur Spitzer, senior counsel at ACLU of D.C., in a statement: “We should never have had to sue to protect essential health care like cancer screenings, STI tests, and birth control. Restoring funding is a victory, but the larger fight to protect everyone's reproductive freedom continues."
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