“I live in New York, so President Trump’s policies won’t affect me.”
This is a sentence I’ve heard countless times from the young women around me as we hurdle into Trump’s second presidential term. However, the closure of Planned Parenthood clinics in New York State foreshadows a troubling trend in decreasing access to abortion and reproductive care for women across the country. Considering New York is one of the most progressive states in the United States, what does it mean for the rest of American women if even New Yorkers are struggling to maintain their access to abortion?
In August of 2024, “amid compounding financial and political challenges,” Planned Parenthood of Greater New York (PPGNY) announced the closure of clinics in Goshen, Amsterdam, Cobleskill, and Staten Island, as well as a temporary pause in deep sedation services at the Manhattan Health Center. The organization blames “reimbursement rates that lag behind the costs of providing services” despite the receipt of $25 million in abortion access grants, and $10 million for security from Governor Kathy Hochul after Roe v. Wade was overturned.
It’s easy to wonder, where did all this money go? Why are Planned Parenthood clinics struggling to stay open even after this additional compensation? The suffering of these clinics stems from “growing operating expenses, unreliable insurer reimbursements, ongoing pandemic recovery, a hostile political landscape, and a FY25 state budget that fell short of responding to the needs of sexual and reproductive health care providers,” said PPGNY as they announced the new clinic closures.
The Fiscal Year 2025 New York Budget set aside $36 million to support abortion providers. However, due to the fact that around 50% of Planned Parenthood customers rely on Medicaid and government funds in order to pay for their services, the budget provided by Hochul was not sufficient. In comparison, in the 2024 New York financial plan, $100.7 million were allocated to supporting abortion providers and funding Medicaid reimbursements.
That said, the institution didn’t resort to closures immediately. In the spring of 2024, PPGNY attempted to strategically reconfigure its funding in order to maintain accessible services that many women rely on, including abortion. Unfortunately, much like many other healthcare centers in the United States, PPGNY was forced to take measures that would be detrimental to customers in order to help them stay in business.
“Planned Parenthood of Greater New York is in the difficult position of navigating financial challenges that are part of the overarching healthcare crisis in the United States. As a leading healthcare provider in an abortion and gender-affirming care access state, PPGNY is striving to meet the demands of today, tomorrow, and the future. We move into this next step understanding that the difficult decisions we are forced to make today are strategies to preserve our ability to provide comprehensive sexual and reproductive healthcare in the long term amid ongoing fiscal and political challenges,” said PPGNY President Kathy Stark in a statement regarding the clinic closures.
While the closures will help maximize resources and optimize patient care at larger facilities, women will also be forced to travel long distances in order to receive desired services. In New York’s Sullivan County, access to reproductive resources has declined dramatically beginning with the Monticello clinic closure in 2020. Despite promises of reopening, residents are now forced to travel over 50 miles to the nearest clinic in Newburgh following the additional closure of the Goshen center.
Women across America, primarily in states where abortion is banned, suffer through similar hardships as 171,000 women traveled out of state to receive abortions in 2023.
Abortion bans and clinic closures evidently have a disproportionate impact on rural and low-income communities, where transportation expenses are a key factor that women must consider. While some women may easily be able to book a train or drive a great distance to an urban center, other women might not be able to afford to miss a day’s work for a long trip, not to mention the expenses of travel.
For communities in Sullivan County, the absence of local services has pushed residents to seek care from alternative providers, such as Sun River Health. However, questions about capacity and the range of services offered leave many without clear options. Moreover, the effects ripple beyond abortion access, with closures also eliminating critical gender-affirming and reproductive health services.
Beyond the hardship faced by women from rural areas, the intense migration of women into larger cities to gain access to what their own areas lacked will only increase wait times of the urban clinics, and make services more expensive. This raises the concern that women not only from rural areas will be affected, but the closures will be detrimental even to women in cities as progressive and prosperous as New York City.
Many anti-abortion activists view abortion as something funded by taxpayer dollars, and “though federal funds do not pay for abortions, [Planned Parenthood] is reimbursed by Medicaid for health care services such as birth control and cancer screening.” More than 50 percent of patients at Planned Parenthood rely on Medicaid for their healthcare coverage, thus, underfunding is detrimental. The Republican plan “calls for the federal government to stop paying Planned Parenthood when a patient on Medicaid comes in for care.” In Trump’s first week in office, he signed an executive order enforcing the infamous Hype Amendment.
The Hyde Amendment, passed first in 1977 (four years after Roe v. Wade) and made permanent in 2017, is a legislative provision barring the use of federal funds to pay for abortion, except to save the life of the woman, or if the pregnancy arises from incest or rape. The amendment’s enforcement by the Trump administration speaks for itself as it is only one of Trump’s attempts to pause federal funding for important organizations.
The government’s Medical Economic Index highlights an 8% increase in operational prices solely due to inflation. On top of that number, clinics are suffering from more challenges such as national staffing shortages and a hostile political landscape that has driven up demand for abortion care and, more brutally, led to the death of abortion care providers in the state’s rural region.
Local leaders and advocates express frustration and concern over the state of healthcare access. The long travel times and limited options reflect systemic challenges, with vulnerable populations bearing the brunt of these decisions. New York State Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther described the situation as a “travesty,” highlighting the urgency of addressing this situation.
New York is famously one of the most progressive and liberal states in the United States, so what does the fact that even New York cannot seem to keep its funding for reproductive services signify for the future of women’s rights in America? As funding decreases in even the most progressive states, abortion will become less and less accessible, leading more people to resort to illegal and unsafe abortion. Before 1973, when Roe v. Wade was passed, “between 20% and 25% of all pregnancies ended in abortion before Roe v. Wade” said Karissa Haugeberg, assistant professor of history at Tulane University.
Before Roe v. Wade made abortion a federal right, women still found a way to terminate their unwanted pregnancies. However, they were unsanitary, unsafe, and many women died from infections or complications that arose during these procedures. Just as the overturning of Roe v. Wade will not stop women from getting abortions, the defunding of Planned Parenthoods will not do what many Trump supporters wish. It will not stop all abortions, it will only stop safe abortions.
In the most recent election, New York State voters were asked to vote on Proposition One, an amendment to the New York Constitution that protects abortion rights and access to reproductive healthcare. It’s evident that although the right to abortion in New York will likely never terminate, access to abortion is not as well protected as we all believe it to be.
We move into this next step understanding that the difficult decisions we are forced to make today are strategies to preserve our ability to provide comprehensive sexual and reproductive healthcare in the long term amid ongoing fiscal and political challenges,” said PPGNY President Kathy Stark in a statement regarding the clinic closures.