Maine’s abortion providers’ last-ditch effort to secure additional funding paid off Tuesday when Maine lawmakers approved adding up to $3 million to the state budget to offset their costs of providing reproductive health care.

Leaders of the nonprofits, during a news conference Tuesday, highlighted a number of funding challenges they are facing, while also noting that June 24 is the three-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. The 2022 ruling eliminated national protections for abortion and left abortion laws to the states.

Planned Parenthood of Northern New England and Maine Family Planning had requested $6 million in a bill — LD 143 — that would help offset their operating costs. Lawmakers funded half of that — $3 million — in the budget signed into law by Gov. Janet Mills last week.

The Legislature’s Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee voted 7-5 Tuesday night to add another $3 million. Any changes to budgetary amounts have to be approved by the Senate and signed by Mills.

The bill, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Teresa Pierce, D-Falmouth, will not pay for abortions, but help fund other health care the clinics provide, such as screenings for cancer and sexually transmitted infections, vaccinations and other primary care.

Before the vote, Rep. Amy Arata, R-New Gloucester, said she was “thoroughly disgusted by this.”

She stated that the Planned Parenthood Maine Action Fund has made significant contributions to Maine Democrats’ campaigns since 2014, and that the Democrat-sponsored bill has been called “money laundering” on the House floor.

“I think it’s very, very clear that’s what’s happening here,” she said.

George Hill, president and CEO of Maine Family Planning, said some services would need to be cut back if the full $6 million was not funded as requested in L.D. 143. Maine Family Planning operates 18 clinics across the state, with one clinic in Augusta providing abortions. All of its clinics provide medication abortions.

“We need Maine legislators to step up and fill the void,” Hill said during the news conference.

Nicole Clegg, CEO and president of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, said LD 143 would help pay for services they already provide. She did not have specifics on what would have been curtailed if it wasn’t fully funded.

“Maine has prided itself on being a leader in sexual and reproductive health care,” Clegg said. “Those are services we believe lawmakers want to protect.”

Clegg said in addition to LD 143, abortion providers are facing cuts from the federal government in the Republican budget bill that passed the U.S. House. A similar version is currently under consideration in the U.S. Senate.

The federal budget bill would cut Medicaid by about $800 billion, and would lead to 16 million more people uninsured nationally, according to a nonpartisan analysis by the Congressional Budget Office. About 40,000 Maine residents would lose coverage, according to KFF, a health policy think tank.

The bill also contains a provision that specifically prohibits Planned Parenthood nationwide from participating in the Medicaid program, which would cost Planned Parenthood of Northern New England about $5 million per year and result in cuts to services, Clegg said.

Planned Parenthood of Northern New England operates in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. It has Maine clinics in Portland, Biddeford, Sanford and Topsham.

Also, the Trump administration has frozen $2 million in Title X funding for Maine, another funding source that helps pay for reproductive health care in the state, although not abortions. The funding freeze is part of $65.8 million in federal health care grants frozen across the country. A lawsuit challenging the funding freeze is pending in court.

Staff Writer Drew Johnson contributed to this report.