Senate approves Planned Parenthood funding cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill
Planned Parenthood would lose federal Medicaid money under the Big Beautiful Bill passed by the U.S. Senate Tuesday, a development the organization’s supporters say could reduce vital health care services for millions across the country.
The House plans to take up the bill Wednesday. If it passes with no amendments, it would head for the White House where President Donald Trump is eager to sign it into law.
Planned Parenthood officials were furious on Tuesday.
“Let’s call ‘defunding’ Planned Parenthood what it is: a backdoor abortion ban,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and chief executive officer of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund..
Medicaid, partially funded by the federal government, pays health care providers such as Planned Parenthood for various health care services.
According to Planned Parenthood’s 2022-23 annual report, about one-third of its funding came from “Government Health Services Reimbursements & Grants,” which includes Medicaid. Planned Parenthood receives a reimbursement for the services provided to patients in the Medicaid program.
Medicaid does not pay for abortion “except under very limited circumstances (abortions for pregnancies resulting from rape, incest or that are life-threatening),” according to KFF, a nonpartisan health research organization.
State Medicaid covers different types of family planning, including pelvic and breast exams and contraceptives at no charge to the client. KFF said that 29% of women using Medicaid in California use those services.
Republican bill-writers had wanted to strip the Medicaid funds for a 10-year period, but a ruling from the Senate parliamentarian limited the cut to one year.
The bill bars those who offer abortions from using any Medicaid funds for the services they offer.
Anti-abortion activists hailed the vote.
“While this provision is unfortunately limited to one year in the Senate bill, it still sets a lasting precedent that lawmakers can build on in future spending bills to restrict taxpayer funding for the abortion industry. We will be there to urge them to do so,” said Brent Leatherwood, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.
“Today, Congress took a major step toward ending the forced taxpayer funding of the Big Abortion industry — a crucial victory in the fight against abortion, America’s leading cause of death, and an industry that endangers women and girls,” added Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.
Planned Parenthood Action Fund and abortion rights advocates fired back.
“This bill is cruel, and that’s the point for Senate Republicans who just voted to ‘defund’ Planned Parenthood. They chose to sacrifice the health and lives of their constituents in service of their long-term goal to shut down Planned Parenthood and decimate abortion access nationwide,” said Johnson.
The Center for Reproductive Rights warned that the bill would close hundreds of Planned Parenthood clinics. Almost 200 health care centers could now close, 90% of them in states where abortion is legal, according to Planned Parenthood.
“This is not a drill — extremists have been scheming for decades to shut down Planned Parenthood, and now they may actually succeed in shutting down scores of their clinics across the country,” said Nancy Northup, the center’s president and chief executive officer.
She said the bill “will be felt most in states where abortion is legal, as most of the clinics at risk of closing are in those states. If this bill passes, many people will have nowhere else affordable to go for these services.”
In California, Planned Parenthood operates 115 health centers and serves almost 1 million patients, one third of all Planned Parenthood patients nationwide. More than 80% of Planned Parenthood patients in California rely on Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program.
“Today, Senate Republicans voted to take away health care to the nearly one million people in California who get essential health care at Planned Parenthood health centers. If this bill is signed into law by President Trump, Californians will suffer,” Jodi Hicks, CEO and president of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, said in response to the ruling.
“Cancers will go undetected, STIs will go untreated, birth control will be harder than ever to get, and the public health infrastructure of California’s most vulnerable communities will break down,” Hicks said in a statement, noting the disproportionate harm California will face.
In a June letter from Francisco Silva, president and CEO of California Primary Care Association, to Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, the CPCA condemned the proposed cuts.
“Eliminating Planned Parenthood from our state’s comprehensive network of care would put untenable stress on remaining health centers,” Silva said. “We do not have the capacity for such an increase in care and building such capacity would require significant capital investment.”
According to research by the Guttmacher Institute, federally qualified health centers (FQHC) could not replace Planned Parenthood’s operations, especially for contraceptive care. The institute estimates a 95% increase in the caseload for patients seeking contraceptive care at California’s non-Planned Parenthood sites if there are no Planned Parenthood clinics. This would include FQHC, health department, hospital and other independent agency sites.
The average Planned Parenthood health center serves 2,640 female contraceptive clients annually, while FQHC, health department, hospital and other sites serve 330, 320, 640 and 410 clients per year respectively.
“FQHCs are indispensable to helping people access health care, but to suggest they could easily step up to replace Planned Parenthood is a politically expedient argument that willfully ignores the facts on the ground,” said Amy Friedrich-Karnik, director of federal policy at Guttmacher.
According to Shelby McMichael, a Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California spokesperson, the recently approved California budget “maintains some really critical reproductive health care investments.” PPAC is still looking to future strategies and next steps but is committed to minimizing disruptions to operations if the bill successfully passes through the House and is signed by the president, McMichael said.
“We knew that they were never going to stop at overturning Roe, and that, this is kind of one other way that they can restrict access to abortion and reproductive health care,” McMichael said. “We knew that they were going to attack Planned Parenthood. It wasn’t like a matter of if, it was just kind of a matter of when.”
This story was originally published July 1, 2025 at 4:52 PM with the headline "Senate approves Planned Parenthood funding cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill."
