Democrats escalate anti-Trump lawfare by targeting Congress in Planned Parenthood funding fight

Fox News

3 days ago

Abortion providers and Democrat-led states are bringing lawsuits over the Trump administration's decision to defund Planned Parenthood, a legal fight that raises the stakes by challenging the will of both Congress and the president.
Planned Parenthood and several blue states have sued over the provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that strips Medicaid funding from certain abortion providers for one year. The bill was passed by Congress and signed by the president in July.
The legislation advances the pro-life movement's longtime goal of defunding Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, but a federal judge in Massachusetts has temporarily blocked the Trump Health and Human Services Department from carrying it out.
Derek Muller, a professor at Notre Dame Law School, told Fox News Digital that taking on two branches of government sets this litigation apart from many of the hundreds of other lawsuits targeting the Trump administration.
"Congress has the power of the purse," Muller said. "Congress has a lot of discretion [over] how it wants to spend its money, and this is not an instance where the executive has been engaged in overreach or doubtful conduct. … This is ordinary legislation, and when it comes to ordinary legislation, there's more deference given to Congress, and certainly more in how it chooses to subsidize things, where it wants to give money or where it doesn't want to give money."
The judge's decision to temporarily block the funding cuts stemmed from a lawsuit brought by Planned Parenthood, a nonprofit with hundreds of facilities across the country that provide abortions and other reproductive health services.
Planned Parenthood's attorneys alleged in court papers that the provision was unconstitutional, arguing it would deprive the nonprofit of millions of dollars in Medicaid reimbursements, causing it to lose half of its patients and forcing it to shutter up to one-third of its facilities.
Katie Daniel, counsel at SBA Pro-Life America, told Fox News Digital Planned Parenthood was making a "desperate argument" that "totally undermines Congress' ability to determine how taxpayer dollars are spent." It also signals that Planned Parenthood was not a solvent business, she said.
"It's a business that really can't keep itself afloat without getting hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars," Daniel said.
Planned Parenthood's attorneys noted that Medicaid does not typically cover abortions and that the funding cuts would affect other services. Cancer and sexually transmitted infections would go undetected, especially for low-income people, and more unplanned pregnancies would occur because of a lack of contraception access, the attorneys said.
"The adverse public health consequences of the Defund Provision will be grave," the attorneys wrote.
Daniel said the Medicaid marketplace includes other options for clinics and that those options "outnumber Planned Parenthood nationally 15 to one."
Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee, said she was inclined to agree with Planned Parenthood that the legislation violated several provisions in the Constitution and granted a preliminary injunction, which the Department of Justice is now appealing.
That lawsuit has been joined by two others challenging the bill. A coalition of 21 states with Democratic attorneys general, along with the District of Columbia and Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, brought one of them on Monday.
Maine Family Planning, which operates 18 health facilities in the Pine Tree State, has also sued over the legislation. While lawmakers have touted that the bill defunds Planned Parenthood, it was written to include other entities, including Maine Family Planning, as a way to pass parliamentarian scrutiny.
Daniel told Fox News Digital she anticipates the higher courts will rule in favor of the Trump administration but that the bill's one-year limit on the funding cuts works in Planned Parenthood's favor.
"At this point for Planned Parenthood, it's really about running out the clock," Daniel said. "The defund provision is for one year, so every single day that they can keep getting money. … That's existential to them."
If the Trump administration ultimately wins the court fight, it could attempt to claw back the Medicaid funds it lost while Talwani's injunction was in place. Daniel noted, however, that "it's incredibly difficult, it's time-consuming, it's costly, and Planned Parenthood is relying on all of that."
Among Planned Parenthood's allegations was a longshot claim that Congress's bill violates the Constitution's bill of attainder clause because it singles out and punishes Planned Parenthood without a trial.
Bills of attainder are pieces of legislation that serve to bypass the role of judges and punish people or entities. The Constitution prohibits bills of attainder because they infringe on the function of the courts.
Muller told Fox News Digital he believed the bill of attainder argument was a "nonstarter."
"People have tried to argue that certain things that Congress does, singling out or targeting individuals, could rise to a bill of attainder," Muller said. "This has gotten some traction in lower courts. It has never really gotten traction in the courts of appeal because it is far afield from the original meaning of the Constitution on this topic."