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Nicole Clegg is president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England.
This first year of President Donald Trump’s second term has felt like a fever dream. Seemingly every week — sometimes every day — he and his administration launched a new attack on sexual, reproductive, and LGBTQ+ health and rights. In anticipation of his potential election, we spent months preparing and on Jan. 20, 2025, we braced for impact.
The first thing we saw was Trump attack the LGBTQ+ community. On day one, he signed an executive order undermining protections against discrimination for gender identity and sexual orientation and eliminated nearly all LGBTQ+ and HIV related content on federal webpages.
In April, the Trump administration shifted its attacks to Planned Parenthood. Our organization’s Title X funds in Maine and New Hampshire were withheld, even though we had been legally awarded the grant, which totaled approximately $900,000 per year. Title X helps people with low incomes access free and reduced-cost birth control, STD testing, cancer screenings, and wellness exams at our health centers.
This move put the health of more than 12,000 Mainers and Granite Staters at risk who rely on Title X to afford their health care. Withholding our funds was a political move to target us; we have been exceptional members of the program.
On July 4, Trump signed H.R.1 into law. Instead of using this bill to focus on the real needs of Americans, Congress chose to “defund” Planned Parenthood from the Medicaid program by prohibiting any federal payments for non-abortion related care we provide. Suddenly our organization was facing an additional $3 million hole.
PPNNE sees more than 8,600 Medicaid patients per year. These are some of our community’s most vulnerable people, earning between $11,000 and $16,000 a year, and we are often the only health care provider they may see all year.
In just a few months of the new administration, Trump and Republicans in Congress managed to jeopardize nearly $5 million in funds that help offset the costs of providing our care to all patients regardless of ability to pay. And that hit doesn’t come close to the true cost we absorb.
Yes, the first year of the Trump administration has been hard for our organization. But that’s not the story I tell our supporters; rather, I talk about PPNNE’s incredible resilience, and dedication to our mission. We have weathered these attacks and not once passed the intended harm on to our patients.
Anti-abortion groups and politicians saw this year as their best opportunity to shutter Planned Parenthood. They united with a singular focus to make it impossible for us to operate in states like ours where abortion is a legally protected right and used the powers of the president and Congress to pursue this agenda.
It doesn’t matter to them that we save lives, that, for many, we are their only access to the health care system. It doesn’t matter to them that we provide some of the best health care in the country or the crucial role we play in helping our patients determine their future. It’s a cruel agenda designed to hurt people.
Yet despite the onslaught of attacks, we have kept our pledge to our patients. We’ve expanded our services to include menopause and vasectomy. We’ve added days of operations because we know our patients have work, child care and school that makes it hard for them to get care. We’ve provided care with dignity to every person who has come through our doors. We have stuck to our values.
For 60 years, PPNNE’s commitment to our patients has been unwavering. No matter the obstacles placed before us, we will continue to stand as a beacon of care, inclusion, and advocacy. We will do whatever it takes to ensure that everyone who walks through our doors receives the respect and health care they deserve — today, tomorrow, and beyond.
