Planned Parenthood’s national organization sued on July 7 to block a provision in the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act that temporarily prevents its affiliated clinics from receiving Medicaid reimbursements.
The statute does not mention Planned Parenthood by name, but the national organization says the law’s wording unconstitutionally singles out its network for a yearlong funding ban.
Medicaid is a joint federal-state program that offers health insurance coverage to low-income Americans.
The new spending and tax law, which President Donald Trump signed on July 4 after publicly boosting it for months, imposes a one-year ban on Medicaid payments to health care nonprofits that provide abortions and took in more than $800,000 in Medicaid reimbursements in fiscal 2023, which the organization says in its legal complaint is “a set made up almost entirely of Planned Parenthood Members.”
Republicans have long tried to cut off federal funding for Planned Parenthood, which provides abortions, birth control, pregnancy testing, and other services, arguing that taxpayer dollars should not flow to any organization involved in providing abortions.
While the so-called Hyde Amendment already bars Medicaid from paying for most abortion services, Republican lawmakers supported the defunding provision because they wanted to stop all taxpayer funds from going to the group.
Earlier on, the defunding provision was to cover 10 years, but days before the bill received final congressional approval, the duration of the Medicaid reimbursement ban was reduced to one year.
The new legal complaint in Planned Parenthood Federation of America Inc. v. Kennedy was filed in federal district court in Boston. The lead plaintiff, Planned Parenthood Federation, is suing on behalf of its 47 member organizations.
The defendants are the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS); Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the HHS secretary; the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS); and Dr. Mehmet Oz, CMS administrator.
The complaint stated that the defunding provision in the law “specifically targets Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its member health care providers in order to punish them for lawful activity, namely advocating for and providing legal abortion access wholly outside the Medicaid program and without using any federal funds.”
If allowed to take effect, the complaint stated, the provision will have “devastating consequences nationwide” by preventing Planned Parenthood from offering care to the nearly 80 million Americans “who rely on Medicaid for their essential health needs.”
The defunding provision prevents federal Medicaid funds from going to any “prohibited entity” that is a nonprofit organization that is “primarily engaged in family planning services, reproductive health, and related medical care” that “provides for abortions” and received more than $800,000 in fiscal 2023 in federal and state Medicaid funds, according to the complaint.
“There is no indication that Members of Congress were even aware that any other entity could qualify under this statute that was clearly designated to target Planned Parenthood alone.”
Almost all “other abortion providers fall outside the scope of a ‘prohibited entity’ under the statute by design,” the complaint said.
The complaint argues that the law violates the bill of attainder clause, as well as the First and Fifth Amendments, in the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution forbids bills of attainder, which are legislative measures that target specific individuals or groups, declaring them guilty and punishing them without giving them an opportunity to defend themselves in court.
The lawsuit comes after a June 26 ruling by the Supreme Court gave states more flexibility to prevent Medicaid funding from reaching Planned Parenthood.
The case, known as Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, dealt with South Carolina’s attempt to prevent Medicaid dollars from going to the organization.
Planned Parenthood and one of its patients sued, alleging that the state’s policy violated the federal law establishing Medicaid, which allows recipients to choose their providers.
The Supreme Court’s ruling, however, held that patients didn’t have a clear right to sue over that provision of the Medicaid Act, and left South Carolina’s policy in place.
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice had no comment on the new lawsuit, Natalie Baldassarre, senior media affairs manager at the agency, told The Epoch Times.
Tom Ozimek contributed to this report.
This article by Matthew Vadum appeared July 7, 2025, in The Epoch Times. It was updated July 14, 2025.