An appeals court panel has overruled a lower court decision stopping the Trump administration from defunding Planned Parenthood.
A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit issued a ruling last Friday in the case of Planned Parenthood Federation of America et al v. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., et al.
At issue was a provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed in July, that bars certain abortion providers from obtaining Medicaid funding for one year.
Circuit Judge Gustavo A. Gelpí, a Biden appointee, authored the panel opinion, which vacated the district court ruling and sent the case back to that court for further proceedings.
Gelpí rejected the lower court argument that the measure was a punishment, noting that it “imposes no fine or other penalty for past conduct” but rather “establishes new conditions on the receipt of appropriated funds in service of a new policy goal favored by Congress.”
“And it does so by imposing conditions that Appellees can satisfy by halting abortion services,” wrote Gelpí. “That the law imposes a difficult choice on the recipient of federal funds does not demonstrate that Congress is punishing the recipient for past action.”
The ruling went on to note that there were “plausible reasons for treating ‘prohibited entit[ies]’ differently from other abortion providers, particularly where Congress viewed these entities as the most significant recipients of Medicaid funds.”
“Preventing these entities from receiving funds if they continue providing abortion services furthers Congress’s interest in reducing abortions. Plaintiffs, therefore, are unlikely to succeed in showing that Section 71113 [of the Big Beautiful Bill] violates equal protection,” Gelpí added.
On July 4, President Donald Trump signed a measure that is commonly called the “big, beautiful bill,” a lengthy budget that included a temporary ban on abortion providers receiving federal Medicaid funding for non-abortion services that would last one year.
The use of federal dollars to fund abortions under most circumstances has been prohibited for decades via the Hyde Amendment.
Planned Parenthood, which gets one-third of its funding from state and federal funds, filed a lawsuit against the measure, arguing that, if allowed to stand, the provision would force the business to close as many as a third of its 600 facilities across the United States.
In July, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani of the District of Massachusetts, an Obama appointee, issued a temporary restraining order blocking the enforcement of the measure against PPFA, Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts and Planned Parenthood Association of Utah.
