Planned Parenthood of Utah to close 2 clinics following federal freeze on Title X funding

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — Planned Parenthood Association of Utah (PPAU) announced that it will close two of its locations after the loss of federal funds.

On Tuesday, the organization announced that the Logan and St. George locations are set to close May 2 and that clinical and education staff will be reduced.

Earlier this month, the federal government froze Title X funding, which is used for organizations that work to provide family planning, birth control, cancer screenings, and STI testing. For PPAU, that is $2.8 million that is now being withheld.

“When you start to think about the impacts of witholding these dollars, it means people will have to defer care, or they will have to spend a lot more, or disrupt their lives a lot more to get the kind of care that they need,” said Shireen Ghorbani, Interim President of the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah.

To put into perspective the impact these closures can have, Ghorbani shared that, for someone in St. George, the closest options they would have would be to go to Orem (roughly 260 miles away) or Las Vegas (about 150 miles away).

In a press release, PPAU said that, without Title X funding, it will also need to increase the sliding-fee scale for self-pay patients. Additionally, telehealth services will be expanded to help patients in rural or remote areas.

Title X was enacted in 1970 with bipartisan support and has been the nation’s only federally funded family planning program. Ghorbani said that since 1985, PPAU has been the only recipient of Title X funding in the state, and that the withholding of such funds will impact tens of thousands of Utahns who rely on Planned Parenthood health centers for affordable reproductive care.

PPAU reports that in 2024, 4,500 patients received care at the Logan and St. George health centers, and more than 26,000 low-income Utahns received low or no-cost services as a result of funding from the Title X program.

“[That was] because of a promise from the federal government to ensure that they could make decisions about their bodies in regard to getting birth control when they needed it, getting screened for cancer if they needed that, making sure they were healthy, getting STI screening when they needed that,” she said. “That promise has been withheld from this administration, and that means that Utahns across the state no longer receive low or no-cost healthcare… Those are individuals who do not have the money to come and see a primary care physician. They come here because they absolutely need our care.”

In addition, she said the loss of Title X funding will also impact the organization’s educational programs.

“It also supports our education, making sure that people get maturation classes, STI classes, so they understand their sexual health. That has also been deeply impacted by these cuts,” Ghorbani said.

PPAU will still have operating health centers in Orem, West Valley City, Salt Lake City, South Jordan, and Ogden.