Planned Parenthood performed a record 434,450 abortions last year while collecting $832 million from American taxpayers.
Republicans managed to cut off that pipeline for exactly one year. Now Congress has gone on recess and let the clock run out.
And the abortion lobby just got exactly what it wanted — a lifeline from the same government that claims to be pro-life.
One Year of Progress, Erased Overnight
President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law on July 4, 2025, and tucked inside it was something pro-life Americans had fought decades to see: a prohibition on federal Medicaid payments flowing to Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers.
But Senate budget reconciliation rules put a ceiling on how long such a provision could last. The ban was written for one year only, expiring exactly on the nation’s 250th birthday.
Congress enacted a one-year ban on federal payments under the Medicaid program to Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers — a ban that expired on July 4, 2026.
There was pressure on congressional Republicans to extend the defund provision from anti-abortion groups, but with slim majorities and many other priorities, it didn’t happen before Congress went on recess.
So Planned Parenthood walks back into the Medicaid billing system as if nothing happened. Hundreds of millions in taxpayer money will begin flowing again to an organization whose own annual report shows it performed a record number of abortions in the last fiscal year.
Planned Parenthood received $832 million in taxpayer funding in 2024-2025, an increase of $39.8 million from its previous report, and a record number of abortions were also performed by the organization.
That is not a healthcare organization. That is an abortion business that has learned to dress itself up in Medicaid billing codes.
“Taxpayer dollars should never be used to fund Planned Parenthood, a business that profits off of killing hundreds of thousands of unborn children every single year,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.
What the Ban Actually Did — and What It Didn’t
The left spent the last twelve months screaming that defunding Planned Parenthood would destroy women’s access to basic care. The numbers tell a different story.
Planned Parenthood published a report showing that 20 of their clinics across the country closed since defunding. In Maine, they ended primary care at three clinics and lost four employees.
Twenty clinics. Out of hundreds. The catastrophe that Planned Parenthood’s president predicted — nearly 200 health centers in 24 states at risk of closure — never materialized.
And yet the abortion count kept climbing. Abortions hit a record-breaking 434,450 in 2024-25, up 8% from the previous year — equating to over 1,190 unborn lives every single day.
The organization also spent $85 million on advocacy, $61.2 million on public policy, and $70 million on sex education during the same period, according to its own annual report. This is where the Medicaid money goes — not just into exam rooms, but into a political machine that lobbies against every pro-life law in every state in the country.
After providing more than 2 million cancer screenings in 2004 and 2005, Planned Parenthood has seen these drop steadily, to just 389,449 in 2024 — a drop of more than 80% for a service the organization identifies as crucial to women’s health. But abortions? Those went up 34% over the same decade.
Speaker Mike Johnson put it plainly at the March for Life rally in January. “We stand here today to say the federal government should not be subsidizing any industry that profits from the elimination of human life.”
But Congress left for recess anyway.
The Fight Isn’t Over — Republicans Have Another Shot
Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) saw this coming. Hawley posted that failing to renew the rule “would be a massive betrayal. Under no circumstance can Planned Parenthood be allowed to get taxpayer money for their abortions and gender transition insanity.”
Hawley filed an amendment to the Senate Budget Resolution to extend the prohibition on federal payments to abortion providers. The Senate rejected it. He then turned to House Speaker Mike Johnson, urging him to act before the deadline.
Johnson didn’t move in time. But the push for a third reconciliation bill is still alive.
The House Freedom Caucus called on Speaker Johnson to include another Planned Parenthood funding prohibition in a future reconciliation bill, arguing Republican voters expect Congress to follow through on promises to eliminate federal support for abortion providers.
“The American people rightfully expect a Republican-led Congress to deliver real results, not excuses or half-measures,” members of the caucus wrote in a letter to Johnson.
“Defunding Big Abortion is now the default expectation of the pro-life movement,” Dannenfelser wrote in a statement. “When they return to D.C., Republicans must do all they can through reconciliation to once again block taxpayer dollars from Planned Parenthood and abortion businesses.”
And there’s still a backstop even with the federal ban gone. The Supreme Court issued its decision in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, and the ruling allowed state Medicaid programs to disqualify Planned Parenthood clinics from their networks of participating providers.
Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas have either blocked or tried to block Medicaid reimbursements to Planned Parenthood.
Those states didn’t need a federal mandate to do the right thing. They just did it.
The bigger picture here is that Planned Parenthood has now spent a full year proving it can weather a funding cut by leaning harder on private donations and state-level allies. Private giving came in at $728.2 million — the second highest total ever. The defunding pressure didn’t starve the organization. It energized its donor base.
Which means a temporary ban was never going to be enough. Pro-life groups knew that going in. John Mize, CEO of Americans United for Life, wrote that a yearlong extension of the rule is “the minimum acceptable outcome.”
Hawley’s amendment had sought to extend the prohibition for ten full years — from fiscal year 2026 through 2035. That’s the kind of sustained pressure that actually forces an organization to restructure. One year just gives them something to wait out.
Congress will return from recess with a decision to make. Speaker Johnson wants a third reconciliation bill. Senate Republicans are cooler to the idea and don’t think it’s realistic given the narrow margins Republicans hold and the general reluctance of some lawmakers to start an abortion fight so close to the midterms.
That reluctance is exactly what Planned Parenthood is counting on.
The organization performed nearly four million abortions over the past decade while collecting over $7 billion in taxpayer revenue during that same stretch, according to Live Action’s analysis of Planned Parenthood’s own annual reports. Every year Congress waits is another year that math continues.
Pro-life voters put Republicans in control of the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. The One Big Beautiful Bill was a real victory. But letting the most important provision in that bill quietly expire without a fight — while Congress is on vacation — is not the follow-through those voters were promised.
Republicans have one more shot at this before the midterms scramble the math. Whether they take it will tell you everything you need to know about how serious they actually are.
Sources: Stateline, The Hill, KSMU, hawley.senate.gov, Live Action, National Right to Life, Charlotte Lozier Institute, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, KFF, Mediaite, The Center Square, polialert.com