By Antonio Ray Harvey
On Feb. 11, California Gov. Gavin Newsom held a news conference to sign a $90 million one-time emergency funding bill for Planned Parenthood and other reproductive health care clinics in the state. The event became tense when questions from reporters veered into unrelated political issues, prompting California’s First Partner Jennifer Siebel-Newsom to step in and sharply criticize the press.
Senate Bill (SB) 106, authored by Sen. John Laird (D-Santa Cruz), is a direct response to federal funding cuts enacted in H.R. 1 by the Trump administration. That legislation blocked Medicaid (Medi-Cal) funding for Planned Parenthood and similar reproductive health providers, Newsom stated.
“California is taking steps to ensure people don’t lose access to the range of services provided by Planned Parenthood,” Newsom stated. “As the Trump administration’s ‘Big Ugly Bill’ punishes women and community health providers, California continues to stand in support of women’s access to essential health services and reproductive freedom.”
California is home to seven Planned Parenthood affiliates, which operate 115 health centers across the state serving patients from all 58 counties. Each affiliate is an independently incorporated 501(c)(3) organization, according to the California Planned Parenthood Education Fund.
Newsom and supporters of the legislation explain that the emergency funding was necessary to deflect clinic closures and protect access to essential services such as birth control, STI testing and treatment, cancer screenings, and wellness exams.
“This $90 million investment will provide a critical lifeline to reproductive health providers specifically targeted by Congress and help prevent the loss of essential medical services in communities statewide,” Laird stated. “Without swift state action, hundreds of millions of dollars in care are at risk, and clinics could be forced to reduce services or close altogether. California is stepping in now because patients cannot wait.”
According to the California Planned Parenthood Education Fund, about 80% of California Planned Parenthood patients rely on public health insurance programs, including Medi-Cal.
Medi-Cal is California’s version of the federal Medicaid program, offering free or low-cost health coverage to low-income residents as well as families, seniors, persons with disabilities, and pregnant women.
Trump has repeatedly stated in the past year that his main priority for Medicaid is to eliminate “waste, fraud, and abuse” rather than cutting benefits for those who need them.
“These state-directed payments have rapidly accelerated, quadrupling in magnitude over the last 4 years and reaching $110 billion in 2024 alone,” Trump stated in June 2025. “This trajectory threatens the Federal Treasury and Medicaid’s long-term stability, and the imbalance between Medicaid and Medicare patients threatens to jeopardize access to care for our seniors.”
The seven Planned Parenthood affiliates in California operate over 100 health centers, organized regionally to cover the entire state. They are divided into Northern California, Mar Monte, Central Coast, Los Angeles, Pasadena and San Gabriel Valley, Orange and San Bernardino, and Pacific Southwest.
Specific, aggregate data for the exact number of Black women attending all California clinics in 2025 is not fully detailed in the provided reports. However, one regional affiliate — Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest — reported that 8% of their patients (9,387 individuals) identified as African American or Black in fiscal year 2025.
Planned Parenthood California Central Coast reported that Black patients consisted of 1.8% of their total patient population in the 2023-2024 fiscal year Impact Report.
In fiscal year 2024-2025, Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties served a total of 125,027 patients,
Specific racial breakdown for Black women was not detailed in the summary.
Jodi Hicks, the CEO and President of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, said SB 106 is an indispensable, “bold and significant” action by state leaders to protect reproductive health care.
“The Planned Parenthood affiliates in California are grateful to our state leaders for continuing to protect Californians’ constitutional right to reproductive freedom by ensuring patients from Eureka to El Centro can continue to access the essential care they need and deserve, no matter what.”
A moment of visible tension occurred inside the room when reporters shifted their questions to unrelated political issues and Siebel-Newsom stepped in and sharply criticized them for straying from the purpose of the event.
In the hours that followed, Siebel-Newsom became the center of a national conversation, drawing headlines and sparking debate across social media.
The bill was designed as a direct response to sweeping federal funding cuts that have strained reproductive health providers across the state. But as reporters pressed the governor, many of their questions veered away from the legislation at hand.
That’s when Siebel-Newsom stepped in.
“We just find it incredulous that we have Planned Parenthood here, and women are 51% of the population, and the majority of the questions — all of these questions — have really been about other issues,” Siebel-Newsom said, directing her remarks at reporters.
The exchange stood out not because tense moments are unusual in Sacramento, but because of what it underscored: a clash between the event’s purpose and the broader political news cycle.
Journalists routinely ask Newsom about a range of timely issues regardless of the subject of a press conference.
Newsom fielded questions about a Bay Area oil refinery closure; calls for Casey Wasserman to step aside as head of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic organizing committee because of Jeffrey Epstein ties; a proposal to shield certain High-Speed Rail records from public view; and whether Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) could show up at polling places during the midterm elections.
Still, the focus of the day was SB 106, a one-time state funding allocation aimed at offsetting deep federal cuts stemming from the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R. 1),” enacted in 2025. The federal measure restricted Medicaid reimbursements to organizations providing abortion services, a move advocates say could force more than 100 clinics in California to close.
Siebel-Newsom’s reaction made it clear that she believed the significance of that moment deserved more attention.
“It’s just fascinating,” she continued. “We have this incredible women’s caucus and all these allies, and you’re not asking about it. And this happens over and over and over and over again. You wonder why we have such a horrific war on women in this country and that these guys are getting away with it. Because you don’t seem to care.”