Planned Parenthood won a temporary injunction on Monday that allows its clinics to continue to receive Medicaid funding for services that are unrelated to abortion.
The organization sued the Trump administration earlier on Monday over a new law that essentially bars Planned Parenthood clinics from receiving federal Medicaid payments, claiming that the legislation is an unconstitutional attack on Planned Parenthood’s national organization and its locally run health care clinics.
The lawsuit, which was filed in Federal District Court in Massachusetts, challenges part of the new domestic policy bill that President Trump signed on Friday. The temporary injunction expires in 14 days.
Under the new law, some nonprofit health centers that provide abortions cannot be reimbursed by Medicaid for providing any other medical services, including birth control, annual checkups and tests for sexually transmitted infections. (The use of federal Medicaid dollars to cover the cost of abortions has long been illegal.)
The new law applies only to nonprofit organizations that generated $800,000 or more in revenue from Medicaid payments in the 2023 fiscal year. Because few abortion providers are large enough to meet that threshold, the lawsuit argues that the law is intended to target Planned Parenthood for its advocacy of abortion rights, violating the group’s freedom of speech.
“The Defund Provision is a naked attempt to leverage the government’s spending power to attack and penalize Planned Parenthood and impermissibly single it out for unfavorable treatment,” Planned Parenthood said in its lawsuit.
“It does so not only because of Planned Parenthood Members’ long history of providing legal abortions to patients across the country, but also because of Planned Parenthood’s unique role in advocating for policies to protect and expand access to sexual and reproductive health care, including abortion,” the lawsuit said.
Health and Human Services, which administers Medicaid, did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
After the new law was enacted, some Planned Parenthood affiliates scrambled to let patients know on Friday that they could no longer use their federal health care coverage to pay their bills.
“It was devastating to have to tell patients that we could no longer bill Medicaid and see them realize that they wouldn’t be able to come back to us for their next appointment,” Dr. Luu D. Ireland, the chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, said in a statement.
Each year, more than one million patients in 43 states receive health care services at Planned Parenthood that are covered by Medicaid.
The clinics are operated by 47 stand-alone nonprofits called affiliates, some of which rely on Medicaid for over three quarters of their revenue.
Stripping Planned Parenthood clinics of those patients and their Medicaid reimbursements “will result in the elimination of services, laying off of staff, and health center closures,” according to the lawsuit.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America sued on behalf of itself and all 47 of its members, including two affiliates named in the complaint, Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts and Planned Parenthood Association of Utah.
Both affiliates, which operate in states where abortion is legal, receive Medicaid reimbursement for other medical treatment, as do independent clinics that have no association with Planned Parenthood.
The new federal law’s $800,000 threshold essentially allows these smaller independent abortion providers to continue receiving federal reimbursements, even as the law bans Planned Parenthood affiliates from federal funding.
Planned Parenthood said in its lawsuit that the law’s focus on punishing Planned Parenthood health centers violates their First Amendment right to free speech.
The lawsuit also said that Utah received $706,251 in Medicaid reimbursements in the federal fiscal year 2023, just below the $800,000 threshold in the law.
If a judge chooses not to rule that the new law violates the First Amendment, the decision could find that a state like Utah is exempt from the ban because it does not meet the $800,000 threshold.
Katie Benner is a correspondent writing primarily about large institutions that shape American life.
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