Top photo caption: A Planned Parenthood facility in Washington is seen in this file photo. Federal funding for Planned Parenthood resumed July 5, 2026, after a provision of the One Big Beautiful Bill prohibiting those funds expired on Independence Day. OSV News filr photo/Tyler Orsburn
By Kate Scanlon, OSV News
WASHINGTON OSV News – A provision of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” that stopped Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid payments for a year expired July 4, allowing the nation’s largest abortion provider to regain access to hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicaid funding.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed by President Donald Trump on July 4, 2025, enacted key items from his legislative agenda on issues including taxes and immigration. It also included a provision eliminating Medicaid funds to health providers who also perform abortions, but only for one year.
Although it was not named in the provision, Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, sued in response, arguing the parameters for ending these funds effectively singled it out. However, courts eventually allowed the provision to go into effect.
Pro-life groups including Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America have pushed lawmakers to include a similar provision in an upcoming reconciliation bill.
“We are urging the House and the Senate to pass a reconciliation bill that keeps our Medicaid dollars out of the hands of big abortion businesses like Planned Parenthood,” Kelsey Pritchard, SBA’s communications director, told OSV News in a July 6 interview.
Pritchard said SBA has called on lawmakers to include a similar provision in a third reconciliation bill Republicans are seeking to pass before the midterm elections. However, the prospects for that package are unclear, amid disagreements within the party, who hold slim majorities in Congress, about what should be included among several other issues.
“This is really now the default expectation from the pro-life movement that they do this again,” she said.
In a July 1 statement regarding the expired provision, Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said, “By deliberately targeting Planned Parenthood, President Trump and his allies in Congress worsened a public health crisis, making it harder for people to get the essential and lifesaving care they needed at their trusted provider.”
The organization’s latest annual report, which reflected its fiscal year as of June 30, 2025, just days before the defunding provision went into effect, showed it performed 434,450 abortions, an increase of over 32,200, or 8%, from the previous year’s report. Meanwhile, the same report showed 389,449 total cancer screening and prevention services – such as pap tests and HPV vaccinations – a decrease from 426,268 the previous year.
In a July 4 statement, Lila Rose, founder and president of Live Action, struck a more critical tone toward Congress, calling the decision to let the defunding provision lapse a “moral failure.”
“On America’s 250th birthday, Congress had the chance to honor the founding promise that every human being has a God-given right to life. Instead, by failing to extend the defunding of Planned Parenthood, lawmakers have allowed taxpayer dollars to flow back to the largest abortion chain in the nation,” she said. “This is a moral failure and an urgent betrayal of preborn children, women, and American taxpayers.”
Rose said Planned Parenthood “is not a neutral health care organization” and “this failure must be corrected immediately.”
“President Trump and Congress must act as fast as possible to restore and extend the defunding of Planned Parenthood and every organization that commits abortion,” Rose said.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities touted the defunding provision as one of “several pro-life victories” in its 2026 message on the 53rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion nationwide as a constitutional right that was overturned in 2022 with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision.
The Catholic Church teaches that all human life is sacred from conception to natural death, and as such, opposes direct abortion. After Dobbs, Church officials in the U.S. have 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.
Kate Scanlon is a national reporter for OSV News covering Washington. Follow her on X @kgscanlon.
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