Planned Parenthood announced it will be closing its Lakeland location next month, citing Medicaid funding changes made under President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” that have affected the nonprofit’s ability to keep its doors open.
According to the clinic’s website, the Lakeland location at 2250 E. Edgewood Drive will close its doors March 13 and provide final appointments on March 6. This location offered health services such as cancer screenings, treatment for sexually transmitted infections, birth control, pregnancy testing, and other health and wellness services.
Notably, it did not provide abortion services, according to the Lakeland Ledger, even before Florida lawmakers banned most abortion procedures in Florida after six weeks of pregnancy.
Michelle Quesada, vice president of communications for Planned Parenthood of Florida, told Orlando Weekly in a statement that the Lakeland Health Center served “a significant number” of patients insured through the federal Medicaid program, leaving them vulnerable to changes made to Medicaid under Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill — the name Trump gave his party’s federal budget bill, signed into law last year.
“This outcome is the direct result of escalating government attacks that have blocked patients using Medicaid from accessing essential reproductive health care across Florida and the country,” Quesada said. Six employees are affected by the closure, she said, and have been offered the opportunity to fill positions at other locations.
The New York Times reported in December that about 50 Planned Parenthood clinics were shuttered last year, similarly due to Republicans’ efforts to cut the healthcare nonprofit off from federal funding and defund safe abortion options (which is different than defunding abortion completely; desperation can lead pregnant people to use unsafe methods in the absence of safe ones).
Quesado said at least 23 of their health centers nationwide have been forced to close due to losses from Medicaid, specifically, “leaving thousands of patients with few options for health care and higher costs.”
A provision of the federal budget bill specifically cut off Medicaid funds for any nonprofit or community provider that “is primarily engaged” in offering family planning services, reproductive health, or provides abortion care outside of very limited circumstances allowed under the federal Hyde amendment.
The provision was a win for the anti-abortion movement, which has been hard at work to replace licensed abortion clinics with religiously affiliated, often unlicensed clinics known as crisis pregnancy centers that often pose as actual abortion providers. Unlike actual health clinics, CPCs that don’t have a medical license aren’t subject to patient privacy laws like HIPAA.
In Florida, these fake abortion clinics (as critics refer to them), often run by churches or similar organizations like Catholic Charities, outnumber actual licensed abortion clinics more than three to one. The state — controlled by a Republican trifecta — even earmarked nearly $30 million in taxpayer dollars to support these CPCs last year, despite some Democrats’ best efforts to defund them.
Quesado, the Planned Parenthood spokesperson, told Orlando Weekly that other Planned Parenthood locations in Tampa, Orlando and Kissimmee remain open and have expanded their services in-person and via telehealth to “help fill gaps created by these politically motivated barriers.”
She said staff have also compiled a list of other healthcare options, including federally qualified health centers, for patients in Lakeland. When Trump’s budget bill was signed into law last year, she said Planned Parenthood tried to offer continuity of care by completing ongoing treatment plans for Medicaid patients and providing them with care for urgent visits at no cost. “We have always known this approach was not sustainable in the long term,” she admitted.
Meanwhile, Florida Republicans in Tallahassee are getting closer to passing a bill that would restrict minors’ access to certain health services, including outpatient crisis intervention for mental health and treatment for sexually-transmitted infections, without written parental consent. Although Democrats have opposed the proposal, they are outnumbered by Republicans in the Florida Legislature more than two to one.
The House version of the bill (HB 173), supported by anti-abortion groups, has cleared its three committee stops and is ready for a vote by the full Florida House. The Senate version (SB 166), meanwhile, hasn’t made any traction, at least not yet.
“With this dangerous bill barreling through the Florida House, we call on Senate leaders to do right by Florida’s youth and hit the brakes on this legislation that would put Florida’s youth at grave risk,” said Planned Parenthood Florida Action spokesperson Michelle Grimsley Shindano in a statement.
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