In 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided to overturn Roe v. Wade, states gained the right to restrict or ban abortions. In 2023, Oregon expanded its law giving people the right to make their own decisions about their reproductive health. Since then, Oregon has seen a steady increase in its demand for all reproductive care services. While demand remains a growing issue that Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette (PPCW) is tackling, new threats to funding for reproductive care pose more challenges to the organization.
In his first month as president, Donald Trump has overturned two orders issued by former President Joe Biden protecting access to reproductive health care services, reinstating an anti-abortion policy that blocks the distribution of federal funding to overseas organizations that perform abortions and pardoning anti-abortion activists who blockaded an abortion clinic in 2020.
According to Dr. Sara Kennedy, president of PPCW, the organization still provides all of the services it offered before the election. However, the possibility of a reduction in Medicaid, or further restrictions to services like reproductive care and gender-affirming care, could have severe consequences for organizations like Planned Parenthood, and the people who utilize its services.
Funding Threats
President Trump has previously expressed that he would not touch Medicaid, then last week endorsed a budget calling for $880 billion in cuts to programs overseen by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, such as Medicaid, according to The New York Times. In October 2024, 72,308,002 people were enrolled in Medicaid. In Oregon, 1,427,016 people are enrolled in the Oregon Health Plan through Medicaid, according to analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
“They could attack the Medicaid program in a number of ways. We are waiting to see what happens, which way they’re going to go after that program and if they’re going to target Planned Parenthood specifically, so that we can react appropriately,” Kennedy told the Source Weekly.
According to Oregon Health Authority (OHA) Communications Officer Kristen Lambert, the agency is monitoring federal actions and plans to prepare for changes that would affect residents.
“OHA is actively assessing all changes on the federal level for any potential impact on Oregon. We will continue to monitor, prepare for and inform the public about changes that could impact access to health care and public health services in Oregon. OHA remains focused on eliminating health inequities by 2030 in Oregon,” Lambert said in a statement to the Source Weekly.
While PPCW hasn’t been tested with executive orders yet, the organization is working to prepare for when that occurs, Kennedy said. It anticipates the administration could attempt further restrictions, like enforcing the Comstock Act, criminalizing the shipping of any material used in an abortion.
Other worries for PPCW include defunding Planned Parenthood at the federal level. This would mean that the organization would stop getting reimbursed for providing services to people on Medicaid insurance. When and if that happens, Kennedy said, the mitigation measures will likely include lawsuits and legal challenges.
“We know we have really fierce allies — the attorney general’s office, the governor’s office and then our legislative allies, and we’re going to be counting on those folks to step up if and when that happens,” Kennedy said.
Sisters resident Dr. Joe Weick worked as an obstetrician, has experience providing abortions and now sits on the board of Indivisible Sisters, a local advocacy group in Central Oregon that champions democracy and fights for progressive policies. Weick said the threat of cutting off Medicaid funds can have very dangerous effects on reproductive health.
“The money is going to dry up. Planned Parenthood is targeted specifically, but it is going to hit all the other health care clinics for outpatient care, suburban and rural, really hard, because that’s their primary income. They depend on Medicaid,” he told the Source Weekly.
Even without potential funding threats, Kennedy at Planned Parenthood said being a nonprofit health care provider is challenging enough when it comes to funding.
“Despite having robust support at the state level and the legislative level, the majority of the patients that we see are insured through Medicaid. The reality is that neither the state nor the federal government has invested the amount of money into Medicaid that we need to cover the cost of providing care,” she said.
On average, Planned Parenthood loses between $200 to $300 for every Medicaid patient it serves.
“That’s just not sustainable… we are working to really focus on asking our legislative allies and our allies in Oregon Health Authority to adequately fund this really important preventative health care so that our populations can be healthier here in the state of Oregon,” said Kennedy.
Growing Demand
Following the 2022 Supreme Court decision, and with subsequent reproductive care restrictions in nearby states, PPCW has almost doubled the number of abortions it provides, with abortions making up about 7% of the care it provided before, and about 13% after.
“That number, it doesn’t mean that all of those patients are coming from out of state, but we think a significant number of them are. Though, that’s only 13% of what we do,” Kennedy said.
The vast majority of Planned Parenthood’s services include preventative health care, like cancer screening, contraception and STI screening and treatment.
“Eighty-seven percent of what we do is about just providing basic preventative health care, and we are seeing an increased demand in those services as well,” said Kennedy.
In Oregon, PPCW continues to see an increase in patients traveling from outside of the state to Oregon health centers to receive care, according to Kennedy. To meet those needs, the organization continues to grow its capacity for both in state and out of state patients.
Currently, it’s working to extend its hours of operation for some of its health centers. PPCW extended hours in the Portland area, opening certain clinics on Saturdays and adding early morning and evening hours.
“Patients need and want those services and are filling those appointments,” said Kennedy. “We know that there’s a lot of people who have really busy and hard lives and can’t get to medical care nine to five on a Monday through Friday. So, our goal is to be open whenever those communities need us, and that includes in Central and Eastern Oregon.”
Since the 2024 election, the Planned Parenthood in Bend has seen a 35% increase in appointments for long-acting forms of birth control and has seen “more and more patients concerned about their ability to access health care as sexual and reproductive health care continues to get politicized at the federal level.”
While PPCW plans to expand its hours at more locations, including the Bend Health Center, Kennedy says the largest limiting factor is staffing.
According to Weick with Indivisible Sisters, Bend clinics are already overwhelmed, because Bend is a hub for rural areas around Central Oregon, and further restrictions and funding obstacles could significantly aggravate that problem.
“What we’re working on is regularly calling our Congress people and senators, calling our state legislators, to make sure that Oregon stays a safe place,” Weick said.
Despite its challenges, PPCW plans to fight against restrictions to reproductive and gender-affirming care and continue providing care to people in and out of the state.
“To date, there is nothing in the executive orders that has immediately impacted our ability to provide our full scope of services. That may change, based on what the federal government does, and we are going to fight as long and as hard as we can to prevent any changes in our ability to provide basic health care to people,” Kennedy told the Source Weekly. “We are trying to fortify ourselves as much as possible, because we know what is coming, and we are determined to not let the federal government get in our way of taking care of people.”
Alexis McGill Johnson, the president and CEO of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, made a statement about the organization’s gender-affirming care services on Jan. 28.
“Planned Parenthood will continue to stand with the transgender community, who deserve the freedom to control their own bodies, lives and futures. Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. Trans people have always existed and always will.”
This article appears in The Source Weekly February 27, 2025.
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