Nan Whaley is the CEO of Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio ACT

The passage of the Trump Administration’s 2025 budget bill slashed Medicaid funding for providers and patients across the nation. In southwest Ohio, the impact of these cuts were immediate and severe — particularly in our Black communities.

Historically, more than 40% of family planning visits at Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio have relied on Medicaid. From July to November 2025, after Trump’s Medicaid cuts took effect, family planning visits dropped by 50% as they were largely limited to people with commercial insurance or the ability to self-pay.

And the year over year numbers are even more staggering: Comparing September-December 2025 to the same months in 2024, overall family planning visits were down 58% while Black, African, and/or African American patient visits decreased by 70% — a significantly disproportionate share of the loss.

It’s worth noting I’m only talking about family planning here: Medicaid has never been used to fund abortion. Not nationally, and not in Ohio.

Federal legislators knew full well that Medicaid does not pay for abortion services, but does pay for the preventive care that keeps people healthy and reduces unintended pregnancies. Yet, they dismantled it anyway.

And politicians in Ohio are poised to further slash Medicaid this year by eliminating Medicaid expansion.

For nearly 96 years, Planned Parenthood has been a trusted health care provider in Ohio. In Springfield, Hamilton, and across southwest Ohio, generations of families have relied on Planned Parenthood health centers for preventive care, education, and compassion. Right now, we are seeing unprecedented attacks on accessible health care disproportionately impacting our Black neighbors.

In 2025 alone, Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio served more than 18,000 people across 23 counties in southwest Ohio and northern Kentucky. But because of politically motivated decisions at the federal level, two Planned Parenthood community health centers in southwest Ohio were forced to close last year.

That’s not an accident. That is policy doing exactly what it was designed to do.

These closures were the desired impact of a bill designed to strip Medicaid coverage from trusted providers like Planned Parenthood. The result is fewer doors open, fewer appointments available, and fewer options for care — especially for Black Ohioans.

When access to care depends on private insurance or out-of-pocket payment, Black patients are disproportionately pushed out. Medicaid is a lifeline; not just for individuals, but for entire communities already navigating systemic inequities in income, employment, and health outcomes.

And I will reiterate: Public funding does not cover abortion. What it supports is preventive, life-saving care. Care like STI treatment services, birth control and IUD administration, ultrasounds and cervical cancer screenings.

Defunding prevention actually increases the need for abortion care, and leaves communities with worse health outcomes in its wake.

And their impacts will ripple far beyond Planned Parenthood. When people lose access to basic health care, they often choose to delay care or turn to already overburdened emergency rooms as a last resort.

Our hostile federal government, led by Donald Trump, intends to legislate Planned Parenthood out of business knowing no provider can absorb the loss of federal and state funding indefinitely. These attacks are designed to keep Planned Parenthood from serving patients and are manufactured to inflict harm on the most marginalized members of our communities.

But at last, some good news: Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio ACT is fighting with everything we have to preserve access for all Ohioans.

As Ohioans, we must decide whether we will allow ideology to continue dismantling a health care safety net that took decades to build or whether we’ll stand up for our community members who depend on it.

If you believe that access to healthcare should not be determined by someone’s race or economic status, that legislators shouldn’t interfere in private healthcare decisions, and that all of our neighbors deserve judgment-free reproductive care, join us.

We cannot allow those facing systems of oppression to suffer as collateral. We must fight back. Our neighbors are counting on us.

Visit https://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/planned-parenthood-southwest-ohio-act and follow Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio ACT to see how you can help.