Both branches of the Legislature, with the support of Gov. Charlie Baker, could act soon to provide funding in Massachusetts for reproductive health care in the face of the Trump administration’s move to cut off federal money for abortion providers.

The House last week announced that it would take up legislation this week to offset the loss of federal funds that might result from the Trump administration’s proposed changes to Title X, a federal program that supports family planning and preventive health services.

Baker said on Monday that he supports that effort, and Senate President Karen Spilka said that the Senate will follow suit on if the House vote takes place as planned on Wednesday.

“I think there’s unanimity among us that we should make sure that the federal policy change here does not affect women’s ability to access reproductive services, period,” Baker said.

House Speaker Robert DeLeo, Spilka, and Baker met privately Monday for about an hour where Baker said the Title X program was one of the issues the three leaders discussed.

Baker said he believed the House and Senate were planning to pass a bill to ensure full funding for family planning clinics for the rest of this fiscal year, and the governor said they would consider how to address a potential funding loss next year once court challenges are resolved.

“It’s something we are all very concerned about. We want to make sure that people here in Massachusetts, women, have access to reproductive services, all of them,” Baker said.

Neither DeLeo nor Spilka said how much funding they were prepared to authorize, but DeLeo called it “outrageous” that the Trump administration had finalized a rule that would cut off Title X funds for any provider that performs abortions or makes abortion referrals.

“We felt that we had to take action immediately, although we all know there are some injunction possibilities out there as well,” DeLeo said.
Attorney General Maura Healey was one of 21 state prosecutors who joined Planned Parenthood and the American Medical Association in a federal lawsuit challenging the rule when it was first proposed last year.

Baker also wrote a letter last summer to US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar taking issue with the proposal, arguing that the federal funds have been critical to providing low-income residents with preventive health care services, such as counseling, physical exams, contraception, HIV/STD testing, and reproductive cancer screenings.