by Sofia Resnick, Tennessee Lookout
September 1, 2025

A federal judge ruled Friday against the Trump administration’s efforts to strip Medicaid funds from primarily Planned Parenthood-affiliated abortion providers.

Massachusetts U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani denied the federal government’s motion to lift a block on a new law, rejecting the U.S. Department of Justice’s argument that allowing Planned Parenthood to continue to bill for Medicaid while their lawsuit plays out would cause the government “irreparable injury.” She said the plaintiffs were more likely to suffer injury if the provision went into effect, such as having to close clinics and reduce services.

“Here, Defendants suffer no irreparable harm where Plaintiffs are substantially likely to succeed in establishing that Section 71113 violates several constitutional provisions,” Talwani wrote in an order, denying the federal government’s request to stay two preliminary injunctions. “[I]t is precisely because Congress targeted only a ‘certain’ group of entities for exclusion from Medicaid programs — all but two of which are Planned Parenthood Federation Members — that Plaintiffs are likely to succeed in establishing that Section 71113 is unconstitutional.”

Late last month Talwani ordered a partial and then a full preliminary injunction after Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its Massachusetts and Utah affiliates sued in early July over the new federal reproductive health restriction. After unsuccessfully asking the district court to lift the block, the federal government appealed the preliminary injunctions to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Shortly after, the DOJ filed a motion asking the district court to reconsider the preliminary injunctions. Last week, the appellate court declined the government’s request, pending the district court’s decision. Defendants are now expected to re-appeal the injunction to the First Circuit. 

The provision, set to expire July 4, 2026, would primarily affect health clinics affiliated with Planned Parenthood, which has estimated it could lose 200 of its 600 clinics, many of which are in rural areas and others that are critical abortion-access points. 

But two other affected organizations are Health Imperatives in Massachusetts, which according to WBUR, operates seven clinics and serves about 10,000 patients, and Maine Family Planning, which has also sued over the provision. On Monday, U.S. District Judge Lance Walker in Maine, an appointee of President Donald Trump, denied Maine Family Planning’s motion for a preliminary injunction, despite the organization facing losses up to nearly $2 million, potential layoffs, and disruption of care for about 8,000 patients.

“This ruling is a devastating setback for Mainers who depend on us for basic primary care,” said George Hill, president and CEO of Maine Family Planning, according to Maine Morning Star. “The loss of Medicaid funds — which nearly half our patients rely on — threatens our ability to provide life-saving services to communities across the state. Mainers’ health should never be jeopardized by political decisions, and we will continue to fight for them.”

Does the new federal Medicaid rule unlawfully target Planned Parenthood?

Federal funding of abortion is already prohibited in most cases under the Hyde Amendment. But the new funding rule would bar from the Medicaid program reproductive health clinics that provide abortions and received more than $800,000 in federal and state Medicaid funding in fiscal year 2023 for health services like birth control, cancer and gender-affirming care. 

The legislation has caused confusion throughout the Planned Parenthood network because its definition of “prohibited entity” includes a barred organization’s “affiliates, subsidiaries, successors, and clinics.”

The nonprofit health network comprises its national membership and advocacy organization, PPFA, and nearly 50 independently structured and operated affiliates, some of which do not offer abortion, such as co-plaintiff Planned Parenthood Association of Utah. These organizations are reimbursed after the fact for specific health services covered by Medicaid. 

Even though the provision is currently blocked, several Planned Parenthood clinics around the country have already closed, both because of the new rule and the Trump administration’s other restrictions stripping abortion providers of federal family planning grants. 

Many of the recently shuttered clinics did not provide abortion, like in Ohio, and some are in states where abortion is illegal, like in Louisiana. 

Planned Parenthood’s attorneys have argued that the new federal Medicaid rule violates their equal protection, speech and association rights, because it excludes their clinics from the Medicaid program on the basis of their association to other organizations — in this case organizations that provide abortions and advocate for abortion rights.

“[S]ince this Court issued its decision, the government has now admitted that Section 71113 (the “Defund Provision”) was intended to punish Planned Parenthood for its ‘political advocacy,’” the plaintiffs wrote in a recent brief opposing defendants’ motion to lift the injunction. 

Plaintiffs referred to a recent public statement made by Andrew G. Nixon, a spokesperson for co-defendant U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 

“States should not be forced to fund organizations that have chosen political advocacy over patient care,” Nixon said, after the district court’s initial preliminary injunction on July 22. 

But in court, the federal government argued the tax and spending cuts law excludes large abortion providers only because they provide abortions. They say they are also excluding smaller or non-abortion-providing affiliates, not because of their speech or advocacy, but because of their “non-expressive activities of corporate control and financing.” Their basic argument is that money to any Planned Parenthood clinic — even for health services unrelated to abortion — is money for abortion. 

“[B]ecause money is fungible, extending the funding restriction to affiliates prevents an organization from undermining federal policy not to subsidize abortion providers by shifting funds between entities that do not perform abortions and entities that do,” defendants wrote.  

The DOJ has also rejected plaintiffs’ claim that the federal legislation is a bill of attainder, which refers to legislation that unconstitutionally imposes punishment on a specific person or group of people without a judicial trial. 

“Halting the flow of federal Medicaid funds to those entities bears no resemblance to the forms of punishment that implicate the Bill of Attainder Clause,” reads the DOJ’s motion. “Historically, bills of attainder involved punishments such as ‘death,’ ‘banishment,’ and ‘imprisonment.’”

But Talwani disagrees with the DOJ’s reasoning.

“[T]here is no indication in the record that Planned Parenthood Members share revenues from Medicaid reimbursements,” she wrote. “The result is a restriction on associational freedom that is in no way ‘essential to the furtherance of [Defendants’] interest’ in withholding funds from certain abortion providers … and instead imposes a wholly unwarranted burden.”

While the new federal tax and spending cuts law does not mention Planned Parenthood by name, a bill introduced this year with similar language is explicitly titled, “Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2025.” Meanwhile, several state legislatures have successfully stripped funding from the organization. The U.S. Supreme Court allowed South Carolina to exclude Planned Parenthood from its Medicaid program in late June after a long legal fight, but the state’s affiliate just sued again over Medicaid eligibility.

“You have to be living in a cave to believe this isn’t about Planned Parenthood,” said abortion law expert Mary Ziegler. “The reason Planned Parenthood is a target is because it’s a twofer. It’s both the nation’s largest abortion provider and also the nation’s best advocate for abortion rights. … But I think the problem for Planned Parenthood is that disaggregating the two is hard, and proving congressional intent to target one rather than the other is challenging.”

Anti-abortion activists and conservative commentators have accused Talwani, an Obama appointee, of judicial activism.

“Now the abortion industry is suing to block the will of the voters, duly passed by Congress,” wrote Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, in a recent op-ed for National Review. “They argue they’re constitutionally entitled to our tax dollars in perpetuity, and they’ve found a single activist judge willing to take their side and impose that view on the entire nation — for now.”

Ziegler said the bill of attainder argument is rarely used, but is plausible in this case. 

“Generally, with a bill of attainder, you have to show that there’s no other kind of valid legislative purpose, and that it’s selectively targeting the person who’s suing,” she said. “In this case, it seems pretty clear that there’s some targeting of Planned Parenthood happening. … But I think there being no other purpose is more complicated.”

Ziegler said the case will likely be hard to win if it gets to the majority conservative Supreme Court. But if the injunction holds, Planned Parenthood could run out the clock on the one-year Medicaid restriction. She thinks it might seem too politically risky to renew this provision right before the 2026 midterm elections to more moderate Republicans in the House, like Rep. Mike Lawler of New York, who told NOTUS in May, “from the standpoint of providing health care to women, you know, I’m not for taking away people’s health care.”

“They’ll either have to say, ‘All our boasts about defunding Planned Parenthood were not real, because Planned Parenthood is going to get funded again,’ or they’re going to have to make the funding prohibition permanent, which could have the consequences that people like Lawler were afraid of.”

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com.

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Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

This content predominantly presents a perspective that is sympathetic to Planned Parenthood and critical of efforts to defund it, highlighting legal setbacks faced by the Trump administration and emphasizing the potential harm to healthcare access. It incorporates voices and sources aligned with reproductive rights advocacy and critiques the political motivations behind defunding measures. While it provides some representation of opposing views, including statements from conservative figures and government officials, these are framed in a manner that underscores the controversy and challenges to the restrictions. Overall, the article leans center-left by focusing on the protection of abortion providers and reproductive health services within the current U.S. political context.