Court Says Trump Can Defund Planned Parenthood

“How can they promise to ‘make America healthy again’ when they are making it impossible for Medicaid patients to obtain life-saving health care services," the Center for Reproductive Rights told Jezebel.

By Danielle Han | September 15, 2025 | 7:15pm

Photo: Getty Images Abortion Politics

Court Says Trump Can Defund Planned Parenthood

In July, when District Court Judge Indira Talwani temporarily blocked the backdoor attack against Planned Parenthood via the GOP’s One Big Beautiful (Awful) Bill with a preliminary injunction, Republicans threw a fit. The Department of Justice accused the bill of “stop[ping] federal subsidies for Big Abortion”; Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Miss.) criticized its constitutionality; and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) retorted in a post on Twitter: “Where is the ‘too many babies’ clause of the Constitution?” (to be fair, he’s not got the best social-media footprint when it comes to personal virtue). Even the Washington Post’s Editorial Board wrote it was “the kind of lower court activism that gives the Trump administration fodder for its attack on judges.”

On Thursday, however, the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Talwani’s order, greenlighting the Department of Health and Human Services to officially block Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funds.

Most Popular

Trump’s megabill included a “defund provision” barring any nonprofit that both provides abortion services and receives $800,000 or more in federal funding from receiving Medicaid reimbursements for one year. But, given how very few organizations hit that $800K threshold, while the bill didn’t exclusively name Planned Parenthood, they didn’t have to. The bill also affected Maine Family Planning, which operates 18 clinics across the state, and has since said they’ll be forced to close clinics and eliminate crucial services. Jezebel has reached out to HHS for comment and will let you know if we hear back.

“Many of the Medicaid patients who get care at these clinics will have nowhere else to go if they can no longer get Medicaid-covered services from their existing providers,” Meetra Mehdizadeh, senior attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told Jezebel in a statement. “And by allowing these cuts, entire state health care systems will collapse, making it harder for everyone—beyond Medicaid patients—to get health care.”

At least 1.1 million of Planned Parenthood’s patients are Medicaid-eligible, with many of them being low-income and/or disabled. The organization operates 200 clinics across 24 states and says the ruling places every clinic at risk of closure.

About 40% of all U.S. abortions are provided by Planned Parenthood, according to the Abortion Care Network. However, the Hyde Amendment already blocks federal funding from being used for abortion. So what the Defund Provision is actually blocking is patients’ access to cancer screenings, birth control, and STI treatments, among other crucial reproductive health services.

“How can they promise to ‘make America healthy again’ when they are making it impossible for Medicaid patients to obtain life-saving health care services like cancer screenings?” Mehdizadeh added.

Following Thursday’s ruling, the Guardian’s Carter Sherman reported that, during a press call, McGill Johnson said they “created an option” for some affiliates to pause abortion services so they could keep Medicaid reimbursements. This confirmed a report from Autonomy News in June that stated that Planned Parenthood was considering rolling back abortion services to preserve federal funding. The organization later confirmed to both the Guardian and Autonomy News that this was no longer an option and had only been considered earlier in the summer.

“With this decision, patients and providers are in limbo,” Alexis McGill Johnson, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, also told Jezebel in a statement. “Patients who rely on the essential health care that Planned Parenthood health centers provide can’t plan for their futures, decide where they go for care, or control their lives, bodies, and futures–all because the Trump administration and its backers want to attack Planned Parenthood and shut down health centers.”

Like what you just read? You’ve got great taste. Subscribe to Jezebel, and for $5 a month or $50 a year, you’ll get access to a bunch of subscriber benefits, including getting to read the next article (and all the ones after that) ad-free. Plus, you’ll be supporting independent journalism—which, can you even imagine not supporting independent journalism in times like these? Yikes.