Trump Admin Just Quietly Made Its Most Gilead-Coded Move Yet
On Friday, the Department of Health and Human Services quietly updated its guidance for Title X, a federal program that—since 1970—has funded clinics that provide reproductive health care services like contraception, STI testing and treatment, and cancer screenings. Trump has messed around with Title X funding before, but these new guidelines are the most Gilead-coded shit we’ve seen from the administration yet.
In 2019, a year into his first term, Trump imposed a gag rule on Title X clinics, forbidding them from telling patients about their options for abortion—even if the clinics themselves didn’t actually provide abortions. This led to the closure of over 900 clinics, including over 400 Planned Parenthood locations. (Biden got rid of the gag rule in 2021.) But HHS’s latest move doesn’t even mention abortion, instead stating that one of the key goals is to “strengthen family formation and assist clients in achieving healthy pregnancies.” Yikes.
As part of the administration’s pronatalist push, in the new 70-page guidance, HHS also removes any mention of birth control, except to claim it has negative side effects, and is part of the country’s “overmedicalization” problem. It states instead that clinics should push “natural family planning methods,” like tracking their periods. It’s another terrifying manifestation of a policy blueprinted by Project 2025, which explicitly said the next conservative leader should prioritize “holistic family planning” when it comes to Title X.
“The administration has no authority to hijack this critically important program by omitting FDA-approved birth control and focusing instead on chronic disease prevention and treatment,” Liz McCaman Taylor, Senior Federal Policy Counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told Jezebel in a statement. “With Title X, Congress gave HHS a clear mandate: support access to a broad range of medically approved family planning methods.”
More than 2 million low-income Americans, overwhelmingly women, access birth control and STD screening through Title X programs.
— Moira Donegan (@moiradonegan.bsky.social) April 3, 2026 at 10:15 PM
The new guidance also pretty much guarantees Planned Parenthood will be further defunded as long as they continue to offer contraception. “While funding for one more year seems to be coming soon, the Trump administration appears ready to cut Planned Parenthood affiliates out of the program and once again take away birth control and other essential health care away from millions,” a Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) spokesperson told Jezebel. In 2022, about 53% of PP’s patients used Title X and Medicaid.
On Thursday, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) also sent a letter to HHS demanding cuts to Title X. “I write to express my alarm at the recent decision to release another year of Title X grant funding to abortion providers,” he wrote. “Taxpayer money continues to flow to abortion providers.” (Keep manifesting…) Hawley demanded HHS provide a new and detailed “rulemaking process” by April 30. And, well, if the senator gets his way, I guess we can all expect our red robes and white bonnets any day now.