By PATRICK WHITTLE
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A network of medical clinics that serves low-income residents in Maine said it will shut down its primary care operations on Friday because of Trump administration cuts to abortion providers.
Maine Family Planning operates 18 clinics in the state and says abortions are a relatively small percentage of its overall services, which also include cancer screenings, sexually transmitted disease testing and contraception. The network said it had to cut primary care because of the administration’s move to block Medicaid money from abortion providers including the much larger Planned Parenthood.
The move to defund abortion providers is driving patients away from their doctors in Maine, said George Hill, president of Maine Family Planning. The network saw more than 600 patients in its primary care practices last year, Hill said.
“Telling those patients we can’t see them anymore has been devastating, especially knowing that some of them will find it too difficult to get a new provider and may just forego care,” Hill said.
Maine Family Planning serves many of the poor and rural areas of the state and typically receives about $1.9 million in Medicaid reimbursements per year, the network said in a statement. The network said it notified its patients of the coming primary care closures about a month ago. The network has about 8,000 patients in total.
Maine Family Planning fought the halting of Medicaid dollars in federal court, but it suffered a setback in August when a federal judge ruled against restoring funding during the network’s ongoing lawsuit against the Trump administration. The network appealed to a higher court, and that legal fight is still ongoing.
The Center for Reproductive Rights filed the case in federal court on behalf of the network, and said Friday it will continue to fight to restore the funding. Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, called the loss of funding for Maine Family Planning “part of a larger strategy to shut down clinics even in states like Maine that protect the right to abortion.”
