Boston — A U.S. appeals court panel on Thursday allowed President Donald Trump’s administration to block Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood while legal challenges continue.
A federal judge in July ruled Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide must continue to be reimbursed with Medicaid funding as the nation’s largest abortion provider fights the administration’s efforts to defund the organization in his signature tax legislation.
Medicaid is a government health care program that serves millions of low-income and disabled Americans. Nearly half of Planned Parenthood’s patients rely on Medicaid.
A provision in Mr. Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” instructed the federal government to end Medicaid payments for one year to abortion providers that received more than $800,000 from Medicaid in 2023, even those like Planned Parenthood that also offer medical services like contraception, pregnancy tests and STD testing.
Federal Medicaid dollars already can’t be used to cover abortions except in cases of rape, incest or risk to a mother’s life. But Planned Parenthood argues the provision in the tax bill would make it harder for patients to access the non-abortion services it provides.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its member organizations in Massachusetts and Utah filed a lawsuit in July against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“While the Trump administration wants to rip away reproductive freedom, we’re here to say loud and clear: We will not back down,” Dominique Lee, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts said in a statement. “This is not over.”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services didn’t immediately respond to an online request for comment.
Planned Parenthood said Thursday’s ruling means more than 1.1 million patients can’t use their Medicaid insurance at its health centers. That also puts as many as 200 of those health centers at risk of closure, Planned Parenthood said in a statement.
Planned Parenthood says it’s the nation’s leading provider and advocate of affordable sexual and reproductive health care, as well as the nation’s largest provider of sex education.
In response to July’s ruling, a White House official said, “The Trump Administration is ending the forced use of Federal taxpayer dollars to fund or promote elective abortion – a commonsense position that the overwhelming majority of Americans agree with.”
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which opposes abortion, criticized the lawsuit and argued Mr. Trump’s domestic policy bill cut off funding to the “abortion industry.”
Joe Walsh
contributed to this report.
