Johnson suggests Trump’s legislative agenda could ‘redirect’ funds from ‘big abortion’

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., suggested April 29 the budget blueprint President Donald Trump calls “one big, beautiful bill” could be used as a vehicle to “redirect funds away from big abortion and to federally qualified health centers.”

“Don’t judge me if I have to name it that, because that is what he wants me to do,” Johnson quipped of Trump’s term for the legislation, which is expected to encompass some of the president’s legislative priorities on issues including tax, energy and border policy.

A spokesperson for Johnson did not immediately respond to a request from OSV News for comment on whether Johnson was referring to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, with his reference to “big abortion.”

In a keynote address at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America’s gala, Johnson said it was “surreal to stand here and speak on the other side” of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision that overturned the court’s previous precedent that held abortion as a constitutional right.

“Our work has just begun, because as the issue returns to the states, we know that we’ve got a restorative culture of life throughout the country,” Johnson said.

But Marjorie Dannenfelser, SBA’s president, acknowledged “there are more abortions annually now than before the Dobbs decision,” and said there is currently a landscape of “unequal protection,” based on whether states have restricted or protected abortion.

According to Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion data and supports the legality of the practice, abortion in the U.S. increased 12% since 2020 to 1,038,000 abortions in 2024. The number represents a less than 1% increase over last year’s abortion numbers.

“Life for some, death for others, depending on your zip code, is wrong,” she said. “Equal protection has nothing to do with geography, where one lives should never be predictive of whether one lives.”

Dannenfelser argued that after the Dobbs decision, pro-life activists “have achieved what many thought was impossible before,” but said “equal protection of little ones in half of our states has not been achieved,” and the Dobbs decision was only “permission to achieve it.”

The group plans to vigorously push to eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood, Dannenfelser suggested in her comments, and her group is pushing its congressional allies to eliminate this funding during the budget reconciliation process.

Planned Parenthood’s most recent annual report for 2022-2023 detailed its operations from 2021-2022, a window of time that included the June 2022 Dobbs decision. It showed Planned Parenthood received about $700 million in “Government Health Services Reimbursements & Grants.”

“The time has come to end that waste of humanity, and the waste of our taxpayer dollars,” she said.

Meanwhile, a decision in a case concerning Planned Parenthood’s ability to use public funds in states that have restricted abortion is pending from the Supreme Court.

In brief remarks from some members of Congress who were supported by SBA, Sen. John Husted, R-Ohio, who was appointed by Gov. Mike DeWine in January to fill the seat vacated by Vice President JD Vance, said in comments to the gala that his biological mother was in “a difficult situation” and chose adoption.

“And then the greatest thing that could possibly ever happen to me was that I got adopted by two wonderful people, my mom and dad,” he said.

In a toast, Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., suggested the audience “raise a glass that we may permanently defund Planned Parenthood.”

Supporters of allowing Planned Parenthood to receive Medicaid funds argue it provides cancer screening and prevention services — such as pap tests and HPV vaccinations — but critics argue the funds are fungible and could be used to facilitate abortion. Efforts to strip Planned Parenthood of public funds are sometimes referred to as “defunding.”

A decision in Kerr v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic is expected by the end of the Supreme Court’s current term, typically in June.

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