Planned Parenthood received COVID relief dollars

In 2018, Gov. Tony Evers campaigned on a promise to restore funding for Planned Parenthood. 

The Republican-controlled Legislature in 2019, however, quashed an expansion of the Affordable Care Act in the state's biennial budget, essentially nixing Evers' Healthy Women, Healthy Babies initiatives. 

Among other measures, that proposal would have provided state funding to organizations such as Planned Parenthood. We rated the promise Stalled.   

In his 2021-23 budget, the governor's "Healthy Women, Healthy Babies" initiative to improve women's health and birth outcomes is back in play. 

Evers' communications director Britt Cudaback said the initiative includes increasing funding for the Women's Health Block Grant and removing restrictions imposed by Republicans that resulted in healthcare providers, such as Planned Parenthood, losing their Title X funding. 

The Title X Family Planning Program is a federal grant program that provides comprehensive family planning and related preventive health services. 

With the budget before the Legislature, the future of this provision remains uncertain at best and we moved this promise to In the Works in 2021.

In 2022, Evers allocated a small portion of federal COVID-19 relief dollars to Planned Parenthood clinics throughout the state. Evers gave Planned Parenthood in Wisconsin $2.4 million in COVID-19 relief money. Of that, $1.4 million was divided among individual clinics and about $1 million was given to the broader statewide organization.  

The grant to Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin is aimed at reducing health inequities that have been exacerbated by the pandemic, not to pay for abortions, a leader within the organization said. That funding moves this from In the Works to Promise Kept.