Anti-abortion groups push Trump to defund Planned Parenthood before Fourth of July deadline

“With the 2025 defunding provision expiring on July 4, the 250th anniversary of our nation founded on the right to life, Republicans must act immediately through reconciliation to permanently keep taxpayer dollars out of Planned Parenthood,” Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser told the Washington Examiner. 

“The American people do not want to celebrate our 250th birthday while funding the largest genocide of our time,” Live Action communications and government affairs vice president Noah Brandt added.

Anti-abortion groups noted that the House last year proposed a decades-long prohibition on Medicaid funding for abortion providers, which had to be reduced to 12 months in response to a decision by the Senate parliamentarian regarding what could be included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act as a budgetary reconciliation measure.

Regardless, Students for Life Action President Kristi Hamrick told the Washington Examiner she warned the White House and congressional Republicans last year that would result in “tension” before November’s midterm elections. 

“Too bad they didn’t pay attention to our prediction because we’re back and we want this finished,” Hamrick said. “Pro-life voters want a return on our investment with the GOP. They have the White House, House, and Senate, so let’s finish what we started a year ago.”

National Right to Life communications director and press secretary Laura Echevarria agreed.

“We encourage the president to continue using every lawful authority available to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not used to subsidize the abortion industry,” she said.

Concerned Women for America CEO and President Penny Nance concurred, contending, “There is no excuse for forcing Americans to pay for other people’s abortions.”

The White House, meanwhile, did not outline a strategy for extending the prohibition.

“Through the president’s One Big Beautiful Bill, Congress was able to rightfully restrict funding for Planned Parenthood and other large abortion providers this past year,” White House spokeswoman Allison Schuster told the Washington Examiner. “The Trump administration will continue to hold Planned Parenthood and all recipients of Federal funds fully accountable for any and all instances of waste, fraud, or abuse.”

Dannenfelser argued Republicans should use budget reconciliation to extend prohibition, since the process would allow the Senate to pass the measure with a simple majority.

However, although the House appears eager to pursue a third reconciliation bill, particularly as a measure to pass Trump’s $88 billion supplemental funding request amid the Iran war, the Senate has not demonstrated the same eagerness.

Spokespeople for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.

Johnson earlier this year declined to add a Planned Parenthood provision to a $70 billion second reconciliation measure funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection in order to end the country’s longest partial federal government shutdown. 

To that end, Americans United for Life spokesman Gavin Oxley implored the White House to make an economic argument to Congress, considering “affordability is the name of the game right now” and that “routing hundreds of millions of dollars back to America’s largest abortion providers directly contradicts that agenda.” 

A source familiar with the situation told the Washington Examiner that Planned Parenthood will be permitted to charge Medicaid for services provided on or after July 4, including cancer screenings, birth control, and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections.

Under federal law known as the Hyde Amendment, tax dollars generally cannot be used for abortions. But critics argue Medicaid funding Planned Parenthood receives is fungible and mitigates the cost of terminating pregnancies, in addition to its receipt of state funding and private donations.

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Planned Parenthood has attributed at least 20 of its 51 clinic closures last year to the Medicaid funding cuts.

“President Trump and congressional Republicans passed a law ‘defunding’ Planned Parenthood because they want to make it harder for everyone, everywhere to get an abortion and their attacks on healthcare won’t stop after July 4,” Planned Parenthood Action Fund spokeswoman Sarah Guggenheimer told the Washington Examiner. “Despite the Trump administration and its allies in Congress continuing to pursue a deadly and unpopular agenda, Planned Parenthood health centers are here to serve patients and they will never stop providing the essential life-saving health care people everywhere need.”