Medicaid defunding of Planned Parenthood expired as America celebrated 250th anniversary

After a one-year temporary revocation of federal Medicaid funding for abortion businesses — including Planned Parenthood — they are once again receiving hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars.

Key Takeaways:

• In July of 2025, Congress passed the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” a budget reconciliation bill which includes the defunding of abortion providers like Planned Parenthood for just one year.

• The bill originally called for abortion businesses to be defunded for 10 years, but this was amended, without explanation, to defund them for just one year — a fact not widely known by the public.

• Despite a series of legal challenges, the defunding was ultimately allowed to stand.

• The one-year defunding period expired on July 4, 2026, allowing Planned Parenthood to again receive $800 million or more in taxpayer dollars.

The Details:

The United States celebrated the 250th anniversary of its founding on July 4, 2026, but as it did so, it restored nearly $1 billion annually in taxpayer money to the nation's largest abortion chain — which is also one of the nation's top providers of "transgender" services, including to minors.

In July of 2025, Congress included a one-year “defund” provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which blocked Medicaid payments to certain abortion organizations for “the 1-year period beginning on the date of the enactment” of the law, which was July 4, 2025. Under the text of the legislation, family planning organizations that commit abortions and also received $800,000 or more in Medicaid funding in 2023 would lose that funding for one year, which applied to Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit to stop the defunding, but after a great deal of legal wrangling, courts ruled against it; the abortion organization dropped its suit in February.

Congress had one year to take action and ensure federal taxpayer dollars through Medicaid didn't resume flowing toward businesses that end preborn lives. That didn't happen. Now, with the one-year period at an end, Planned Parenthood will get this funding again.

In a press release, Live Action founder and president Lila Rose issued a statement, saying:

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. This is a moral failure and an urgent betrayal of preborn children, women, and American taxpayers....

This failure must be corrected immediately.... It is a horrific and preventable atrocity that on the very day we are celebrating our blessed liberty, our federal government is once again funding the killing of our own children.

Rose also noted that, "On July 16, Live Action will lead a nationwide day of prayer with a live webcast, calling on Americans to pray, speak out, and demand that Congress defund Planned Parenthood now.” 

Why It Matters:

There are numerous reasons Planned Parenthood should not receive a dime of taxpayer funding. This is an organization that kills hundreds of thousands of preborn children through abortion, pushes ideological sex education and gender-transition services on children, aids sexual abusers, and much, much more.

Live Action's Vice President of Communications and Government Relations, Noah Brandt, wrote in a recent op-ed at the Daily Wire:

Planned Parenthood is not a local charity that stumbled into politics. It is the nation’s largest abortion organization. Its 2024-2025 annual report lists 434,450 abortions committed, each of which is a precious child killed. The same year, they reported $832 million in government reimbursements and grants. It also lists tens of millions of dollars spent on explicit sexual education, public policy, and advocacy expenses.

The organization says its health centers provide hormone therapy and other “gender-affirming” services. Its website lists estrogen and anti-androgen hormone therapy, testosterone hormone therapy, puberty blockers, surgery referrals, and transition support. Planned Parenthood has been described as the second-largest provider of gender hormone therapies in the United States. And they offer nothing to minors who regret transitioning.

Live Action News' DEFUND 250 series lays out in explicit detail the many reasons why Congress should have acted — and now must not fail to act — to defund Planned Parenthood, once and for all:

• 'DEFUND 250': 10 times Planned Parenthood's racism was revealed

• 'DEFUND 250': 10 shocking moments from the Planned Parenthood body parts scandal

• 'DEFUND 250': Planned Parenthood's record of misleading the public

• 'DEFUND 250': 10 times Planned Parenthood helped child predators

• 'DEFUND 250': Planned Parenthood's top 10 disqualifying privacy violations

• 'DEFUND 250': Top 10 most horrifying Planned Parenthood abortion stories

• 'DEFUND 250': 10 Planned Parenthood scandals and abuses

• DEFUND 250: 10 times Planned Parenthood misled clients and the public

• 'DEFUND 250': 10 times Planned Parenthood has killed or injured patients

• 'DEFUND 250': 10 facts Planned Parenthood lied about or denied

• 'DEFUND 250': Employees allege internal corruption at Planned Parenthood

• 'DEFUND 250': 10 times Planned Parenthood's sex ed misled and groomed kids

• 'DEFUND 250': 10 lawsuits reveal why Planned Parenthood is not a leader in health care

• 'DEFUND 250': Taxpayer-funded Planned Parenthood helps to create more abortionists

• 'DEFUND 250': Planned Parenthood endangers clients with easy access to cross-sex hormones

• 'DEFUND 250': Planned Parenthood staff describe its disturbing practices

The Bottom Line:

Americans should not be forced to fund an organization they ideologically oppose, but more so, an organization that causes such widespread harm. The absolute least Congress can do is stop giving almost $1 billion of our Medicaid dollars to Planned Parenthood — not just for a year, but forever.