Last year's major budget reconciliation bill included a temporary one-year ban on Medicaid dollars to places providing abortion, causing dozens of Planned Parenthood and abortion-providing facilities nationwide to close.
The organization says its clinic closures were temporary, but it recorded 250,000 fewer patient visits between October 2025 and April 2026 compared to the previous year.
That provision expired earlier this summer, opening the door for Medicaid reimbursements to resume. Since then, advocacy groups like Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America have intensely lobbied Congress to use the budget reconciliation process to pass a permanent federal defunding ban in upcoming budget bills.
"We have been fighting in Congress to stop those dollars and stop abortion clinics from receiving those, but there are a couple different hurdles that sort of get at that apple," reports Mark Wiltz, director of government affairs at Live Action.
He says the way to do that is by Congress passing a reconciliation bill that includes a measure to defund Big Abortion providers, just like the One Big Beautiful Bill.
"We need that same vehicle in order to get that done again."
As pro-life groups actively negotiate with leaders in the House, Senate, and the White House, Wiltz says defunding Planned Parenthood remains a core priority for the pro-life movement.
"We want Republicans to have the ability to defund Planned Parenthood again so we can put that money towards more things that affirm life and less things that cause death," the pro-lifer summarizes.
While federal lawmakers weigh their options, Wiltz notes that state leaders do not have to wait on Washington.
Live Action is urging state lawmakers and governors across the country to exercise their Supreme Court-affirmed authority to strip Planned Parenthood from their individual state budgets as well.
