BOSTON (AP) — Planned Parenthood won a partial victory Monday in a legal fight with President Donald Trump’s administration over efforts to defund the organization in his signature tax legislation.
A provision in that bill ends Medicaid payments for one year to abortion providers that received more than $800,000 from Medicaid in 2023, even to those like Planned Parenthood that also offer things like contraception, pregnancy tests and STD testing.
But U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston granted a preliminary injunction Monday that, for now, blocks the government from cutting Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood member organizations that either don’t provide abortion care or didn’t meet a threshold of at least $800,000 in Medicaid reimbursements in a given year.
It wasn’t immediately clear how many Planned Parenthood organizations and clinics would continue to get Medicaid reimbursements under that decision and how many might not.
Planned Parenthood said in a statement after the injunction that it’s thankful the court recognized “the harm” caused by the bill. But it said it’s disappointed that some of its members will lose this funding, “risking chaos, confusion, and harm for patients who could now be turned away when seeking lifesaving reproductive health care.”
“The court has not yet ruled on whether it will grant preliminary injunctive relief to other members,” the statement added. “We remain hopeful that the court will grant this relief. There will be nothing short of a public health crisis if Planned Parenthood members are allowed to be ‘defunded.’”
The lawsuit was filed earlier this month against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. by Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its member organizations in Massachusetts and Utah.
Planned Parenthood argued that allowing the provision to take effect would have devastating consequences nationwide, including increased rates of undiagnosed and untreated sexually transmitted diseases and cancer.
“With no reason other than plain animus, the law will prevent Planned Parenthood Members from providing vital — indeed, lifesaving — care to more than one million patients,” they wrote. “This statute is unconstitutional and will inflict irreparable harm on Planned Parenthood Members and their patients.”
Lawyers for the government argued in court documents that the bill “stops federal subsidies for Big Abortion.”
“All three democratically elected components of the Federal Government collaborated to enact that provision consistent with their electoral mandates from the American people as to how they want their hard-earned taxpayer dollars spent,” the government wrote in its opposition to the motion.
The government added that the plaintiffs “now want this Court to reject that judgment and supplant duly enacted legislation with their own policy preferences. … That request is legally groundless.”
Hours after the lawsuit was filed, Talwani issued a temporary restraining order that prevented the government from enforcing the cuts. That order had been set to expire Monday.
