A coalition of Democratic-led states sued the Trump administration on Tuesday over Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood by using Medicaid payments as a cudgel.
The new lawsuit, filed in Massachusetts, comes on top of a challenge brought by Planned Parenthood itself. Both lawsuits target a provision in President Trump’s signature policy law that would effectively withhold Medicaid funds from affiliated clinics across the country, a move that the organization contends could shutter a number of locations and leave thousands without access to basic health care.
A day ago, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from implementing the president’s policy, finding that the provision, as written by Republican lawmakers, appeared to be an unlawful act of retaliation that violated Planned Parenthood’s freedom of political expression.
But during a news conference announcing the lawsuit, Rob Bonta, the California attorney general, said that the legal atmosphere in the United States had grown so unpredictable that a second challenge was prudent.
He cited the raft of emergency rulings by the Supreme Court siding with the Trump administration this year, as well as the Justice Department’s pattern of seeking quick appeals to overturn lower court decisions that had previously halted the president’s policies from taking effect.
“Who knows what decision will be made down the line?” he said. “It’s important that everyone who is harmed, everyone who is treated unlawfully — here Planned Parenthood, as well as the state of California — bring their case.”
Mr. Bonta reiterated many of the claims Planned Parenthood has made in its own lawsuit, which is also proceeding in Federal District Court in Massachusetts.
The organization has argued that Mr. Trump and Republican allies in Congress aimed to withhold Medicaid funding from all clinics affiliated with Planned Parenthood as a means of pressuring the organization to stop offering abortions across its national network.
The provision, tucked in the president’s tax and spending law, imposed a one-year ban on state Medicaid payments to any health care nonprofit that offers abortions and received more than $800,000 in federal funding in 2023.
Federal law already prohibits Medicaid funds from being used to pay for abortion procedures, so the new provision effectively stripped federal funding for the many other procedures Planned Parenthood offers, such as testing for sexually transmitted infections.
On Monday, in the case brought by Planned Parenthood, Judge Indira Talwani said the way the provision was crafted — targeting only large providers that received more than $800,000 — looked suspiciously intentional in singling out Planned Parenthood, as few other organizations approach its size and reach.
She said the policy resembled an unconstitutional bill of attainder: a law passed by Congress targeting a specific entity outside the court system and without due process.
Mr. Bonta seized on that point on Tuesday, saying that Congress had weaponized Medicaid as a way to pressure Planned Parenthood into changing its stance.
“It endangers lives, burdens already strained health care systems, and turns Medicaid, a program meant to uplift vulnerable communities, into a political weapon,” he said. “Access to essential health care is a fundamental right, not a bargaining chip to further the president’s political agenda.”
The twin lawsuits also focus on First Amendment claims, given Planned Parenthood’s unique mission as both a health care nonprofit with affiliate clinics, and a political entity with an advocacy arm that lobbies and engages in political organizing.
In pulling back the Medicaid funds, the Trump administration has also worked to diminish Planned Parenthood’s reach and curtail its political speech, the lawsuits claim.
The new lawsuit was brought jointly by the attorneys general of 21 states and the District of Columbia, along with Josh Shapiro, in his capacity as the governor of Pennsylvania. Mr. Shapiro’s involvement appeared calculated to include his state as a party to the lawsuit even though Dave Sunday, the state’s Republican attorney general, did not join the coalition.
Letitia James, the New York attorney general, said in a statement that her state had joined in defense of the roughly 89,000 New Yorkers enrolled in Medicaid who had received care at Planned Parenthood clinics in 2023.
Facing questions from reporters, Mr. Bonta acknowledged that because of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling limiting the power of district court judges to issue injunctions that apply across the country, any relief granted in the lawsuit may be limited to those states involved.
He said the coalition of states suing had anticipated an outcome where Planned Parenthood clinics in other states that did not join the lawsuit may not be covered if a judge blocked the policy in only about half of the country.
“This is exactly what the cowardly and craven and feckless Republican AGs need to be answering for,” he said referring to Republican attorneys general. “They’re sitting on their hands. They’re not doing anything to protect the rights and freedoms of the people in their state, to protect the funding that is owed to their states.”
Separately on Tuesday, Planned Parenthood also filed a lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services focused on revisions made to the way the department administers a teenage pregnancy prevention program.
The lawsuit claims that under new guidelines published this month, the department has forced Planned Parenthood and other participants in the program that receive federal grant money to meet unreasonable standards set by Mr. Trump’s executive orders.
Among other things, the lawsuit says the group has faced vague expectations to scrub certain L.G.B.T.Q. content from its programming and materials in order to qualify for funding, as well as to eliminate content that normalizes sex outside of marriage, including education on contraception.
Zach Montague is a Times reporter covering the federal courts, including the legal disputes over the Trump administration’s agenda.
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