The pressure campaign to defund Planned Parenthood is headed to the Senate as Republicans usher a major tax bill through Congress.
The House moved one step closer to a goal on Thursday that has eluded abortion-rights opponents for years. It passed language in President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” that blocks Medicaid funding from providers that offer abortions.
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The anti-abortion movement has been here before, with both chambers considering and then stripping the language to defund from their marquee pieces of legislation. But House centrists accepted the 10-year ban with mild public pushback, giving activists hope they can similarly get the provision through the Senate.
Anti-abortion groups say they will target Republican senators who are wavering on cutting the funding once lawmakers return to Washington from the Memorial Day break. Although federal law bars most taxpayer money from being used for abortions, organizations such as Planned Parenthood have received hundreds of millions of dollars for health services, including screenings for sexually transmitted diseases and cancer.
Students for Life Action, a prominent anti-abortion group, will focus on 12 Republican senators in its multipronged push. The organization will release the list of senators on Wednesday.
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“We’ll be going to their districts,” Kristi Hamrick, vice president of media and policy of the group, told the Washington Examiner. “We’ll be doing ad campaigns. We’ll be doing prayer vigils. We’ll be in Washington, D.C.”
The effort is similar to the grassroots campaign that Students for Life Action conducted as the House debated the bill.
Already, the anti-abortion movement is applying public pressure. On Thursday, 27 groups, including Students for Life Action, wrote a letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-ID), and other senators, pressing for the defunding of Planned Parenthood.
“We, the undersigned individuals and organizations, respectfully urge the United States Senate to act
immediately to end federal funding for Planned Parenthood,” the signees wrote. “This language is currently included in the reconciliation package before you. This provision must be kept and passed.”
The letter also slammed the organization over its efforts to provide “gender-affirming care” for transgender and nonbinary patients.
“By expanding into the gender-transition industry, it compounds its record of harm by pushing sterilizing drugs on minors for profit,” the letter states. “While committing these atrocities, Planned Parenthood receives nearly $800 million annually in taxpayer dollars: a staggering figure that should alarm every American.”
The Senate is expected to revise key components of the House bill, including other changes to Medicaid. In past Congresses, the language to defund has been removed.
The current House-passed bill blocks support to Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers that received more than $1 million in Medicaid funding in 2024. There are exceptions for clinics that help women who are pregnant as a result of rape or incest or are suffering from a life-threatening medical emergency.
Republicans were forced to strip language defunding Planned Parenthood in 2017, after the Senate parliamentarian ruled that it violated the Byrd Rule, which prohibits “extraneous” provisions in budget legislation.
Abortion opponents are also expected to face pushback from two centrist Republicans: Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK).
Still, the fight over Planned Parenthood has been overshadowed by flashpoints over Medicaid funding, with House Republicans passing reforms that would remove health coverage for millions of recipients. Collins told reporters earlier this month that she isn’t drawing any red lines at this point and reiterated that her primary concern is the benefit cuts.
Anti-abortion groups also have the support of Senate leadership, with Thune attending this year’s March for Life, plus the sway of Trump in the White House.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump would not allow federal funding to go toward transgender procedures during a Thursday press briefing.
“The president has maintained a very clear commitment to ensuring that this administration and the American people’s tax dollars are not funding any institution. That includes hospital systems that are funding the chemical castration and mutilation of children,” Leavitt said. “We’re not going to tolerate taxpayer dollars going to such efforts.”
According to a 2023-2024 Planned Parenthood report, 39% of its revenue comes from government health services reimbursements and grants. Another 34% comes from private contributions and bequests, 17% is from nongovernment health services funding, and 10% is from other revenue.
A May KFF health tracking poll showed 32% of women have gone to a Planned Parenthood clinic for care, while 11% of men said the same. Nearly half of black women, 45%, said they had visited one of the group’s clinics. Additionally, 43% of people with Medicaid visited a clinic compared to 33% of those with private insurance.
Social conservatives pointed to a New York Times report that showed cash-strapped Planned Parenthood clinics were providing subpar care to patients.
“By stripping Planned Parenthood of federal funds, we expose its reliance on taxpayer dollars amid a troubling record of malpractice and ethical failures,” Penny Nance, CEO and president of Concerned Women for America LAC, told the Washington Examiner.
“There’s no doubt that Planned Parenthood is harmful and abusing our taxpayer dollars,” added Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, in a statement.
Dannenfelser called the New York Times story a “grisly” account that details “atrocious conditions nationwide like botched abortions and leaking sewage” before pushing for alternative resources. “In stark contrast, community health centers offer greater access and actual comprehensive women’s healthcare. And they outnumber Planned Parenthood locations 15-to-1 across the country.”
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Planned Parenthood advocacy organizations spent a record-breaking $69.5 million during the 2024 election cycle to boost former Vice President Kamala Harris’s unsuccessful campaign. The Democratic focus on preserving abortion rights helped motivate turnout in 2022 in light of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, but Trump’s insistence on keeping restrictions a state matter helped insulate Republicans in 2024, and he comfortably won a second term in November.
In 2024, Planned Parenthood performed 402,200 abortions, 5.1 million STI tests and treatments, 2.2 million birth control services, and 364,600 Pap tests and breast exams.
According to the organization, a third of its health centers across the nation could close if the tax legislation becomes law.
“Nearly 200 Planned Parenthood health centers could be forced to shutter, and more than 1.1 million patients could lose access to care,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, in a statement. “Cancers will go undetected, STIs will go untreated, and birth control will be harder to get — all while charging the taxpayers nearly $300 million to do it.”
Should the Senate keep the provision stripping Medicaid reimbursement in its legislation, anti-abortion advocates say the fight against Planned Parenthood would move to another phase: barring the federal government from doing business with the organization.
“Then we are going to turn to the issue of debarment, because the way to get them 100% out is to debar them as a bad actor,” said Hamrick, with Students for Life.