Life

BREAKING: Trump Administration Moves to Freeze, Cut Funding to Planned Parenthood

The Trump Administration plans to freeze $120 million in funding to Planned Parenthood and other family-planning organizations while it investigates whether those organizations used federal funds for DEI efforts.

The Wall Street Journal broke the story on Tuesday, citing sources familiar with the situation. The administration is expected to publicly announce the funding freeze sometime this week.

A spokesperson from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said grant recipients are under review as they monitor for compliance with President Trump’s executive orders, including directives for DEI be removed from all aspects of the federal government.

The action will freeze roughly $20 million in grant money slated to go to Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood is responsible for performing nearly 400,000 abortions every year which is roughly half of all abortions performed in the United States.

Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told The Wall Street Journal,

“The Trump-Vance-Musk administration wants to shut down Planned Parenthood health centers by any means necessary, and they’ll end people’s access to birth control, cancer screenings, STI testing and treatment, and more to do it.”

News of restricting funding to Planned Parenthood has been received with great appreciation from the pro-life community.

President of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Marjorie Dannenfelser, told LifeNews, “This is a victory for the unborn and for taxpayers. … This is about protecting life and respecting the conscience of Americans who don’t want their money supporting abortion.”

Other pro-life leaders took to X to celebrate the news.

Lila Rose from Live Action wrote,

Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life shared,

Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA also posted,

Many in the pro-life movement are calling on the Trump Administration to completely defund Planned Parenthood of all $700 million in tax dollars. Indeed, not a single cent of taxpayer money should go to an organization that kills 400,000 preborn children every year.

The Daily Citizen is very grateful for HHS’ decision and will keep you updated on this developing story.

At Focus on the Family, we have defended the rights of preborn children for decades, and we won’t rest until every preborn baby is loved and welcomed into the world. Through our Option Ultrasound program, we’ve helped save over half a million preborn babies since 2004.

You can learn more about Option Ultrasound and partner with us to help save lives.

If you are experiencing an unexpected pregnancy and want to learn more about your options, visit My Choice Network.

Related Articles and Resources

My Choice Network

Counseling Consultation Request Form

Considering Abortion?

Focus on the Family Pro-Life

Option Ultrasound Program

Support Your Local, Pro-life Pregnancy Medical Clinic

Alternatives to Abortion: Pregnancy Resource Centers

Hopeful Choice: What is a Pregnancy Help Center? 

Image from Getty.

New Video: Young Expecting Mom Says No to Abortion and Yes to Jesus

In a touching video making its way around the internet, a young, expectant mother tears up, saying she will be “forever grateful” to the sidewalk counselor who talked to her outside an abortion clinic, the women celebrating her baby with a baby shower and for finding Jesus in the process.

The video was recently posted by the pro-life organization Love Life on their TikTok page and is now being shared on all social media platforms. It has over 187,000 views on X.

@love.lifeusa

We first met Momma C outside Planned Parenthood when she was five months pregnant. Since then, she has surrendered her life to Christ and is now faithfully attending Destiny Church in her community. And this Saturday, we had the incredible honor of throwing her a baby shower! Thank you Jesus!!! 😭🙏🩵

♬ original sound – love.lifeusa

In their TikTok post, Love Life explains that they met “Momma C” on the sidewalk outside of Planned Parenthood when she was five months pregnant.  “Since then,” they say, “she has surrendered her life to Christ and is now faithfully attending Destiny Church in her community. And this Saturday, we had the incredible honor of throwing her a baby shower!”

The video captures the tender moment when Momma C stood up at her baby shower to say thank you to the large gathering of women and children.

“You guys don’t even know me and you guys did all this. I will forever be grateful.”

The young mom then went on to recognize the woman who met her on the sidewalk before she stepped into a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic.

She said, “This wouldn’t be possible today if it wasn’t for Brenda, who stopped me the day I was probably going to make the worst decision of my life.”

Momma C then joyfully tells the women that she’s been going to church, and she’s found Jesus — which is met with cheers and applause.

The video beautifully encapsulates what the pro-life movement is all about: Loving women. Loving babies. Standing in the gap for them and with them.

Empowering women to say yes to life because they feel the support of a community that will walk with them before birth, after birth and be a resource through all the parenting stages.

This is the future of the pro-life movement. It is how we will change hearts and minds about abortion one person at time, so that one day abortion will be unthinkable.

Praise God for Momma C and her willingness to say yes to life and to Jesus.

Praise God for Brenda, the sidewalk counselor who was willing to step out of her comfort zone and talk to an abortion-minded mother.

And praise God for the pro-life community who comes around women every day to celebrate life. 

Image from TikTok.

Colorado’s Pro-Life Bills: Conscience Rights, Consent and Care

Several bills have been introduced this session in the Colorado legislature aimed to protect human life, parental rights and the deeply held beliefs of medical professionals. Sadly, these bills will probably never become Colorado law — but they should be.

Among the pro-life bills under consideration this session, the measures below would advance the cause for life in Colorado by protecting women, girls, babies, medical professionals and parental rights.  

HB25-1255: Health-Care Provider Right to Exercise Conscience

This bill, also known as the Medical Ethics Defense Act, attempts to safeguard the conscience rights of healthcare professionals to act according to their ethical, moral or religious beliefs when working.

HB25-1255 would allow providers to refuse to participate in or pay for a procedure, treatment, or service that violates their conscience. The measure would also prohibit agencies from revoking or denying a license to professionals who exercise their free speech rights and follow their convictions.

The bill would also create a private cause of action against those who violate the conscience rights of healthcare professionals.

Medical professionals and faith-based hospitals who are morally opposed to abortion should not be forced to perform or provide abortion procedures.

HB25-1257: Relinquishment of Child in Newborn Safety Device

This measure aims to expand Colorado’s Safe Haven Law by allowing a newborn to be placed into a baby box at designated locations up to 60 days after birth. Under current law, a baby can only be surrendered within the first 72 hours of its birth.

Safe Haven Laws allow parents to anonymously surrender their newborn babies.

According to the legislation, some of the permitted locations for baby boxes include fire stations, hospitals, and emergency clinics.

These laws are compassionate because they give parents who may otherwise choose abandonment a safe alternative that lets newborn babies live and find adoptive placement with a family that wants to care for them.

HB25-1251: Parental Consent to Treatment of a Minor

This bill may seem unnecessary, but it’s not. HB25-1251 would prohibit people and organizations from arranging or performing a surgical procedure on a minor without the written or verbal consent of the minor’s parent. The measure creates exceptions for minors who are under the state’s custody, in an emergency situation, or if a court approves of the medical service.

The bill aims to involve parents in significant medical decisions affecting their children. Requiring parental consent protects minors and preserves parental rights.

This bill is necessary because it gives clear guidance for our state regarding the importance of parental involvement, specifically with regard to making healthcare decisions for minors.


HB25-1251: Abortion Clinic Regulation

This measure would require that abortion clinics performing second and third trimester abortions be licensed with the state and follow the safety standards of other medical facilities that perform medical or surgical abortions in the second and third trimester.

Under current law, abortion clinics are not regulated at all, jeopardizing the safety of women and girls. 

According to the legislation, second and third trimester abortions are associated with significant risk. There is a 10% chance that a complication will arise in a second trimester abortion. The risk of maternal death from abortion increases by 38% every week after eight weeks of gestation.

Abortion clinics shouldn’t be given a loophole when it comes to safety standards. Women and girls deserve to have laws in place that keep them safe. This measure would ensure that abortion clinics are held to the same standards of safety as other facilities performing second and third trimester abortions.

Call To Action

Collectively, the presence of these bills works to advance a culture of life in Colorado as they move through the legislative process. Debate and public engagement are powerful tools to influence the hearts and minds of legislators and voters alike.

Coloradans can participate in the process by contacting their legislators to share their support for these bills, providing testimony at public hearings, joining a pro-life advocacy group and staying informed.

Active public participation ensures that the laws are advanced and reflect the people’s will. The pro-life community must engage in the process if they want the laws to reflect their values and protect the most vulnerable members of our society.

Image from Shutterstock.

VP JD Vance: No More Harassing of Pro-Lifers

Speaking on Friday at the 20th National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C, Vice President J.D. Vance drew strong policy distinctions with the previous White House.

“Now we know the last administration liked to throw people in jail for silently praying outside [abortion] clinics,” he told those gathered. “We know that they liked to harass pro-life fathers of seven, very often Catholic fathers for participating in the pro-life movement. And we know that the last administration wanted to protect taxpayer-funded abortion right up to the moment of birth.”

Vice President Vance then stated:

“And on every single one of those issues, in 30 short days, Donald J. Trump has gone in the exact opposite direction.”

Since taking the oath of office on January 20, President Trump pardoned 23 pro-life advocates who had been arrested and jailed (some up to almost five years) for protesting at abortion clinics.

In appealing to President Trump on their behalf, the Thomas More Society stressed, “These individuals participated in mere peaceable civil disobedience, in the heralded tradition of the American Civil Rights activists. Peaceable actions like these usually merit, at worst, a minor misdemeanor conviction.”

In addition, the Trump administration has banned all taxpayer-funded military abortion travel, reinstated the “Mexico City Policy” which prevents U.S. taxpayer funds from paying for abortions in other countries, and reinstated the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal dollars to pay for abortions.  

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Secretary of Health and Humans Services, who said “every abortion is a tragedy,” has pledged to carry out the pro-life priorities of the Trump administration. This includes enacting a ban on fetal stem cell research, ending late-term abortions, investigating the current use of abortion pills, and protecting the rights of doctors who refuse to conduct abortions due to their religious convictions. 

Newly sworn-in Attorney General Pam Bondi has also pledged to prosecute those who illegally sell abortion pills. FBI Director Kash Patel has also assured the American people that his agency will no longer be targeted pro-life Americans. 

The National Catholic Prayer Breakfast began in 2004 after Pope John Paul II had challenged members of his church to look for new and creative ways to evangelize the world.

Speaking on Friday to those gathered inside the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Vice President Vance reflected, “I think that what the Catholic Church calls me to do is, to say that as the stock market is doing OK, but people are literally dying and losing years off of their life, then we have to do better as a country.”

During his remarks, Vance, who is a Catholic convert, also referenced differences he’s had of late with church leadership over the Trump administration’s immigration policies. While acknowledging the inevitability of seeing things from another point of view, the vice president served up something of a challenge, too.

“I think it’s incumbent upon our religious leaders to recognize that in the era of social media, people will hang on every single word that they utter, even if that wasn’t their intention, and even if a given declaration wasn’t meant for consumption in the social media age,” Vance said.

In a post-Roe and Dobbs world, pro-life advocates continue to debate the most effective strategies and policies as we engage on both a national and state level. Regardless of these tactical and even practical differences, the Trump administration has made clear their willingness to cooperate and help advance a culture of life.

Image from Getty.

How in-Utero Diagnosis Is Being Used to Push Abortion

Imagine you’re an expecting mother, and you’ve just received the heartbreaking news that your unborn baby has a chromosomal disorder, and your doctor says it’s fatal. The doctor explains that an abortion would be the quickest solution, and that without one, your baby will die anyway in perinatal hospice. These are the only options presented.  

It’s cruel and unreasonable to expect a mother or father in this situation to realize they’re being misled. But in a disturbing number of cases, that’s exactly what happens.   

A recent report by the National Catholic Bioethics Center on Health Care and Life Sciences documented how physicians are often reticent about prognosis of children diagnosed in the womb with supposedly fatal disorders. Sixty-one percent of parents who received such a diagnosis said they felt pressured to abort, and in 39 states, “fatal fetal anomalies” and “non-viability” are legal justification to do just that.   

The problem is that, as the report puts it, “there is no universally accepted definition of a lethal or fatal fetal anomaly.” Diagnoses generally classified as “fatal” include “trisomy 13 and 18, severe brain malformations, conditions leading to lung underdevelopment, and absent or severely damaged kidneys.” Yet roughly half of children born with these conditions survive their first 12 months, and many live for years.  

Other conditions, like Down Syndrome, are compatible with “decades of survival” yet often result in pressure by physicians to abort or even withhold life-saving care. That may be why between 67% and 85% of such diagnoses result in termination.  

In reality, many of these supposedly “fatal” diagnoses aren’t reliable. The New York Times reported back in 2022 that false positives are incredibly common with prenatal tests for a number of chromosomal disorders, with screenings for a few conditions returning false positives 60-90% of the time! 

Worse, parents hit with this news are often told all sorts of inaccurate things. When surveyed, 57% of moms and dads who received a prenatal diagnosis said healthcare providers told them that if their child survived, he or she would live a life of suffering. Half were told their child would be a vegetable and live a meaningless life. And 23% were warned that giving birth to their disabled child would ruin their marriage or family. 

Parents who choose not to abort when anomalies are detected before birth are frequently pressured into perinatal hospice, which is where infants go to die naturally. But often, this leads to newborns being denied life-saving care that would be given to any other infant, contributing, ironically, to the supposed “lethality” of their conditions. 

As the author of the bioethics report, Dr. Martin McCaffrey, put it, these diagnoses have become a “self-fulfilling prophecy”: 

If physicians say a condition is lethal, it becomes lethal. When parents are counseled that a prenatal diagnosis is fatal, and offered no hope for supportive medical interventions, they are left to choose between abortion and perinatal hospice. … Lethality begets lethality. 

The damning fact exposed by this report is that too many healthcare providers are functioning like self-appointed eugenicists, dictating to parents which little lives are worth living and which are not. This perpetuates misinformation around children with chromosomal and other disorders, all of whose lives, however long or short, are precious in the sight of God.  

This has to stop. Thankfully, reports like this move us in the right direction, exposing the word games played with terms like “fatal,” “lethal,” “terminal,” and “compatible with a meaningful life.” These games are played at both ends of life, justifying abortion and infanticide on one hand and assisted suicide and euthanasia on the other. 

Doctors need to be honest and “fulfill their duty to offer parents informed consent.” It’s their job to heal, not to kill. And it’s certainly not their job to exaggerate or lie about the lethality of conditions when they believe children who have them are better off dead. Many already know this, but too many, apparently, do not.  

Parents also have a crucial role to play by staying informed and insisting healthcare providers give them the true accuracy of prenatal tests. They should also know that hospice isn’t the only option. As the report concludes, those with children who have life-limiting disorders have every right to demand their children be stabilized, evaluated, and otherwise given the reasonable, life-saving treatment offered to other infants. Parents don’t have to give in to the pressure of self-fulfilling prophecies.  

Lastly, all of us, whether we have a child with disabilities or not, must insist upon a culture that welcomes human life as a gift. The ugliness of encouraging parents to kill their newborns is born of a lie: that human beings are products to be optimized or returned if “defective.” But we’ve seen where this lie leads. It leads to a world where no one is safe from the fibs of physicians playing God. We should prefer a world where more people respond to suffering with the words of God’s Son: “Let the little children come to me.”