Judge blocks, for now, Planned Parenthood defunding provision backed by bishops

A federal judge placed a temporary restraining order on a provision in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which President Donald Trump signed into law July 4, that would have stopped Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid payments for a year.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston ordered the block July 7 when New York-based Planned Parenthood Federation of America, joined by its Massachusetts and Utah affiliates, filed a lawsuit against the heads of the U.S. departments of Health and Human Services and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and their agencies.

The judge ordered both HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy and CMMS administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz to respond by July 14. Talwani placed a temporary hold on the provision until July 21, when the next hearing in the lawsuit takes place.

The budget bill, which enacts key policy priorities of the Trump administration, calls for defunding, for a year from its signing July 4, certain healthcare entities called “community health providers” that provide abortions and had more than $800,000 in Medicaid receipts in 2023. It does not name Planned Parenthood. However, the country’s largest abortion provider argued it has been effectively singled out under the conditions of the “federal payment to prohibited entities” section of the law.

According to its most recent annual report, Planned Parenthood received about $792.2 million in “Government Health Services Reimbursements & Grants” for its operations from 2022-2023 — a substantial portion of its $2 billion annual revenue.

Government reimbursement typically does not cover elective abortion, as the Hyde Amendment, which Trump reinstated upon taking office in January, prohibits such federal funding. Planned Parenthood’s non-government health services revenue (which includes elective abortion revenues) was $350.5 million in its latest report.

In its lawsuit, Planned Parenthood claimed that more than 1 million patients with low incomes will no longer be able to access services such as testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections and cancer screenings, and that other health providers would be hard pressed to absorb those patients.

Planned Parenthood also argued the provision could potentially lead to reduced services, layoffs and closing down its clinics.

“The Defund Provision is instead a naked attempt to leverage the government’s control over funds to punish Planned Parenthood. It does so not only because of Planned Parenthood Members’ long history of providing legal abortions to patients across the country, but also because of Planned Parenthood’s unique role in advocating for policies to protect and expand access to sexual and reproductive health care, including abortion,” it argued.

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America’s director of legal affairs and policy council Katie Glenn Daniel criticized Talwani’s order in a statement sent July 8 to OSV News.

“This is brazen defiance of elected leaders, both the president and Congress, who had every right to act on the will of the people to stop forced taxpayer funding of Big Abortion,” she said.

She further stated SBA was looking forward to a “swift appeal” that would cut short what it called Planned Parenthood’s push for time to “rake in every last tax dollar they can.”

“In the meantime we thank the Trump administration for standing firm on principle. We’re confident they will prevail and the abortion industry’s last-ditch money grab will fail,” said Glenn Daniel.

Defunding major abortion providers like Planned Parenthood was one of the provisions that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops strongly backed in the “Big Beautiful Bill” even as they called for “drastic changes” to other provisions that would have an impact on people in poverty, immigrants and the environment.

“Fundamental to all of the priorities expressed in this letter is the sacredness of every human life, and the intrinsic dignity of the human person, created male and female, and made in the image and likeness of God,” the bishops’ conference wrote in a June 26 letter to Congress.

The Catholic Church teaches that human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the first moment of conception, and since the first century has opposed abortion based on this teaching.

Following the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, church officials in the U.S. reiterated the church’s concern for both mother and child, and called for strengthening support for those living in poverty or other causes that can push women toward having an abortion.

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