Appeals Courtroom Guidelines President Trump Can Defund Deliberate Parenthood
A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a key provision of President Donald Trump’s signature domestic policy bill, allowing the administration to defund the Planned Parenthood abortion business.
The One Big Beautiful Bill that Trump signed this summer withholds Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood and other major abortion sellers, delivering a major victory to pro-life advocates seeking to end taxpayer support for organizations that kill babies in abortions.
The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court’s preliminary injunction, ruling that the measure in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act does not constitute an unconstitutional punishment.
“It instead uses Congress’ taxing and spending power to put appellees to a difficult choice: give up federal Medicaid funds and continue to provide abortion services or continue receiving such funds by abandoning the provision of abortion services,” Judge Gustavo A. Gelpí wrote in the opinion.
The provision bars Medicaid reimbursements for one year to organizations that kill babies in abortions and received more than $800,000 in Medicaid funds in fiscal year 2023 — criteria that primarily target Planned Parenthood affiliates.
Previously, a liberal federal judge blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from cutting off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood in 22 states and Washington, D.C. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee in Massachusetts, issued a preliminary injunction against the defunding provision.
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Pro-life advocates had championed the law as a critical step to redirect taxpayer dollars away from abortion companies, ending federal taxpayer support to large entities like Planned Parenthood.
The ruling applied to a coalition of 22 states led by California, Connecticut and New York, plus the nation’s capital.
Talwani found that the states are “likely to prove that the law imposes an unconstitutional, retroactive condition on state participation in the Medicaid program,” which provides health coverage to low-income Americans. She described the provision as “impermissibly ambiguous,” noting that allowing it to take effect would “increase the percentage of patients unable to receive birth control and preventive screenings, thereby prompting an increase in states’ healthcare costs.”
Planned Parenthood, which sued separately and saw 48 of its abortion centers close this year.
When a federal appeals court allowed the law to proceed temporarily, pro-life groups praised the decision.
The Trump administration’s policy aimed to enforce longstanding restrictions on federal dollars supporting abortion, building on efforts to protect unborn babies.
Talwani’s order halts enforcement for seven days to allow the administration time to appeal.
Earlier this year, Talwani blocked the same provision in a Planned Parenthood case on different grounds, though that injunction was put on hold during the appeal process.
Planned Parenthood’s latest annual report shows the abortion business killed a record 402,230 babies in abortions in the past year, while generating over $2 billion in revenue. That’s a 2.42% increase in the number of babies Planned Parenthood killed in 2023-2024 than it did the prior year, when it killed 392,715 babies in abortions.
