By Alice Miranda Ollstein01/13/2026 10:02 AM EST
The American Civil Liberties Union on Monday dropped its lawsuit against the Trump administration over tens of millions in Title X family planning funds that federal officials had withheld from Planned Parenthood and some other health clinics since last spring, after HHS quietly released the money in December.
Though the Trump administration is still defending in court far bigger federal cuts to Planned Parenthood that Congress approved last summer, the release of the Title X funds gives the clinics a crucial lifeline. It is also likely to inflame existing tensions between the administration and anti-abortion conservatives who will rally in Washington later this month for the annual March for Life.
The clinics and the groups representing them argue, however, that the restored funds will not undo all of the harm done over the many months the money was withheld. Though many clinics had been saving their receipts from low-income patients who came in for birth control, testing for sexually transmitted infections and other Title X services and can submit them now for federal reimbursement, dozens of clinics have since shut down and are unlikely to reopen.
“More than 800 service sites were unable to provide Title X services. Hundreds of thousands of patients were unable to get Title X services. So the impact was tremendous,” said Brigitte Amiri, the deputy director at the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project who represented the clinics in the case. “So damage certainly was done as a result of their unlawful withholding of the funds.”
Trump administration health officials did not respond to questions about why the funding was restored.
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https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/13/lawsuit-dismissed-after-trump-admin-quietly-restored-tens-of-millions-to-planned-parenthood-00723369
