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An appeals court on Tuesday cleared the way for the Trump administration to enforce in 22 Democrat-led states a provision of a budget bill that cuts off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood clinics that provide abortions.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit’s decision came in response to Judge Indira Talwani, a federal judge in Massachusetts, blocking the provision of the bill. A three-judge panel on the circuit court, comprising all Democratic appointees, paused Talwani’s decision, marking at least the second time that the judge has been overruled after siding with Planned Parenthood.
The states, led by California, had argued in a complaint that the funding cuts amounted to “retribution” for Planned Parenthood’s “constitutionally protected advocacy” of abortion access.
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The states’ lawsuit turned on the argument that Congress did not provide enough specifics about the Medicaid cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, in violation of the Constitution’s spending clause. Talwani, an Obama appointee, was persuaded enough to grant an injunction, but the appeals court paused it, saying the argument was likely to fail.
The lawsuit was one of several that stemmed from Congress passing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s funding cuts to certain Medicaid recipients who provide abortions. Trump signed the bill into law on July 4, and the cuts were set to last for one year.
Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, said in a separate lawsuit in the summer that the provision unconstitutionally aimed to punish the nonprofit for its views, pointing to celebrations from Republican lawmakers about defunding Planned Parenthood specifically.
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Lawyers for Planned Parenthood said that stripping their client’s Medicaid funding would force it to close a portion of its roughly 600 facilities and deprive more than 1 million people, about half of its customers, of services that do not include abortion. Talwani sided with Planned Parenthood and was overruled by the appeals court in that case as well.
Medicaid does not typically cover Planned Parenthood’s abortion services, and the abortion giant has repeatedly emphasized that its clinics also provide other services, including screening for certain cancers and sexually transmitted infections and offering contraception.
In the case brought by the states, the Trump administration argued that the bill’s budget restrictions were standard and approved by the legislative and executive branches.
“Congress enacted a routine restriction on the use of federal funds—something it does in every budget cycle,” Trump Department of Justice lawyers wrote. “The Medicaid statute contains dozens of limits on how States may use federal funds. … When the States agreed to participate in Medicaid, they knew that they would have to abide by such conditions.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the California attorney general’s office for comment.
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