Trump Administration’s Mass Layoffs Pose New Threat to the Nation’s Family Planning Safety Net

Los Angeles, CA – In the midst of the federal shutdown, the Trump Administration has fired almost everyone who worked at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Population Affairs (OPA), the federal office responsible for administering the nation's Title X family planning program. Elimination of OPA and the Title X program was a Project 2025 priority and the program was zeroed out in the President’s budget proposal released earlier this year. Title X was established in federal statute by Congress in 1970 with bipartisan support and provides a pathway to birth control, STI testing and treatment, and cancer screenings to millions of people with low incomes across the country.

Essential Access Health, the Title X grantee for California and Hawaiʻi, issued the following statement in response:

Title X remains a critical part of our health care safety net that serves millions of people across the country, and more than half a million patients in California and Hawaiʻi. Vital sexual and reproductive and preventive health services currently remain accessible at the 350 health centers that receive Title X funding across both states, but the alarming reduction in the federal workforce responsible for overseeing Title X is a dire threat to the program’s success and future. 

Title X is the cornerstone of the nation’s family planning safety net, ensuring that millions of people – particularly those with low incomes and without other pathways to care – have access to essential health care, including birth control. The near-total elimination of the OPA team is the latest administrative action that poses a threat to contraceptive care. It also creates further uncertainty and potential harm to health centers and communities still destabilized by HHS unlawfully withholding Title X funds earlier this year and the devastating damage inflicted on the health care system, providers, and patients by H.R. 1

Essential Access is calling for the immediate reinstatement of OPA staff so that they can continue to do the urgent work of overseeing the nation’s family planning program. We urge members of Congress to reaffirm the Administration’s statutory obligation to maintain Title X funding and operations.