Countdown: We must stop funding abortion before America’s 250th birthday

Live Action has initiated a countdown that ends on July 4, 2026, when the temporary federal Medicaid defunding of Planned Parenthood expires and the question of public complicity in abortion returns to the forefront.

If Congress takes no further action, federal Medicaid funding for the largest abortion business in America will automatically resume on the very day the United States celebrates its 250th birthday.

Key Takeaways:

• On July 4, 2026, if Congress takes no action to stop it, Planned Parenthood will once again receive federal Medicaid funding.

• Planned Parenthood ended more than 402,000 human lives by abortion in its most recently reported year. This is not a small part of its business. It is a business model.

• When the government finances a corporation that is deliberately ending human lives, it is not remaining neutral but participating.

• A national pro-life coalition has formed in an effort to permanently defund Planned Parenthood by July 4, 2026, the nation's 250th birthday.

The countdown clock is a moral statement about human life and human worth. If the nation restores funding for the killing of preborn children on the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, then its assertions that all men are created equal and that life is an unalienable human right will have become theater.

A national campaign has been launched to permanently defund the nation's top abortion corporation: Planned Parenthood.

The Details:

Planned Parenthood’s Record and the Shift to Chemical Abortion

Planned Parenthood performed over 402,230 abortions in its most recently reported year alone. That number does not describe an incidental part of its operation. It is the core of it.

At the same time, the organization has rapidly expanded distribution of chemical abortion drugs, pushing abortion into private homes and bathrooms, intentionally placing women alone in moments of hemorrhage and trauma; many are stunned and suffer immediate regret when they see the recognizable human remains of their preborn children.

The abortion pill regimen has become the method by which the majority of abortions are now carried out. There is no physician present. There is little to no accountability for the abortion industry. There is only absence where life once was. This is the institution that receives hundreds of millions in public funds every year.

Government funding of abortion is not neutrality. It is participation.

This raises a basic question of public responsibility. When the federal government finances an industry that ends developing human lives in secrecy and silence, it is not acting neutrally. It is participating. It is declaring that some human beings may be erased without witness or protection.

A nation cannot make that choice and still claim that all people are created equal.

Leader of the Senate Pro-Life Caucus Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith has spoken to this point on the Senate floor:

“Taxpayer dollars should never be used to fund abortions. Abortion is not health care, and Americans should not be forced to subsidize it.”

The question of public funding is therefore not a matter of budget preference or partisan advantage. It is a statement about who counts as a member of the human community and who does not.

If the government funds the ending of human lives while they are at their most vulnerable in the womb, it has answered that question.

Senator Josh Hawley has articulated this moral stake in clear terms, saying:

“No American should be forced to pay for abortions. Taxpayer dollars should be used to support life, not end it.”

The Countdown Clock shows the date upon which the nation will either continue to fund the destruction of its children or choose to end its involvement.

Why It Matters:

July 4 is not merely a national holiday. It is a declaration of the proposition that human beings are created equal and possess rights that precede and surpass government authority. The first of these rights is the right to life.

To spend public money to end life on Independence Day is not a policy mismatch. It is a contradiction at the level of the nation’s moral foundation.

If the country reaches its 250th July 4 while funding Planned Parenthood, then it has renounced the document it claims to celebrate. If instead the country reaches its 250th July 4 having ended public financing of abortion, then it will have reaffirmed the Declaration not as an artifact but as a governing truth.

What's Happening:

The Live Action Government Affairs team has developed a national pro-life coalition specifically for the effort of permanently defunding this grisly business in 2026. The group is composed of advocacy leaders, legal and medical experts, Congressional staff, grassroots mobilizers, and policy organizations.

The purpose is not to secure a temporary provision or a symbolic gesture that expires with a political shift. The goal is a permanent end to federal taxpayer funding for all abortion providers. Not one year at a time. Not contingent on who controls a chamber. A true prohibition that shows the value of human life.

The Bottom Line:

Numbers are not rhetoric. They move whether the nation pays attention or not. By July 4, 2026, the United States will either celebrate independence while funding the destruction of its own children,
or celebrate independence by honoring the truth that every human life has worth.

This is not a symbolic campaign. It is a serious national effort to realign the law of the United States with the truth at the heart of our founding.

If we reach the 250th anniversary of our nation while continuing to fund the killing of our children, then our celebration will be empty. This coalition exists to ensure that does not happen. We are working for a permanent end to taxpayer funding of the abortion industry.

The countdown is now live: www.liveaction.org/defund-planned-parenthood-2026