Will Planned Parenthood Stay Defunded?

O n July 4, the one-year provision that defunded Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers via the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is set to expire. Republicans need to answer some difficult questions about their political and policy priorities, as they face a stark choice: fight to extend this defunding, or abandon the issue for the foreseeable future.

Unfortunately, continuing to defund abortion providers might be stuck behind other GOP legislative priorities. Two weeks ago, an amendment proposed by Senator Josh Hawley to include defunding abortion providers as part of legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security failed to pass. After securing funding for most of DHS last Thursday, Republicans still need a 60-vote-bypassing vehicle to obtain funding for immigration enforcement entities within DHS. But a reconciliation process would also be necessary to ensure that abortion defunding will be accomplished, if it happens at all. While Senate Majority Leader John Thune has indicated openness to extending abortionist defunding, the timeline is short to accomplish all the Republicans’ goals by July 4. Planned Parenthood could see its funding restored, at least temporarily.

It is important to understand how important this revenue is to Planned Parenthood. The bulk of Planned Parenthood’s federal funding came from Medicaid reimbursements. Medicaid provided the nation’s largest abortion provider with over a third of its revenue — approximately $700 million per year. By the metric of taxpayer dollars, Planned Parenthood was actually far more “public” than the Corporation for Public Broadcasting: PBS and NPR combined received less money and a smaller percentage of their money from the federal government than Planned Parenthood did.

Like PBS and NPR, Planned Parenthood is an aggressively partisan organization. Its affiliated PAC and 501(c)(4) entities spend tens of millions of dollars every election, essentially all of it in support of Democrats. Its raison d’etre is abortion, which it refuses to stop performing (because abortion is the source of its political and donation support), even though a significant percentage of the country opposes it. Planned Parenthood is not a fit recipient for public funding, which is a privilege, not a right. For the first time, in 2025, Republicans followed through on their fiscal and moral principles to cut abortion providers off from federal funds.

However, because three Republican senators opposed the OBBBA (pro-lifers Rand Paul and Thom Tillis, along with abortion supporter Susan Collins), Lisa Murkowski became the all-important 50th vote to secure passage. When OBBBA was introduced, the Senate parliamentarian held that only a one-year defunding was permitted under the Senate’s reconciliation rules rather than the Republicans’ initial ten-year proposal. Perhaps out of a desire to avoid antagonizing Murkowski (who voted against Hawley’s recent defunding amendment) and thereby jeopardizing her support for the entirety of the OBBBA, Republicans did not challenge the parliamentarian’s decision. The defunding stopped at one year, not ten.

This hurt in two ways (beyond the obvious math that one is less than ten). Given how significant federal funding is to Planned Parenthood’s overall fiscal health, a ten-year defunding would have crushed the abortion giant, forced a massive downsizing of its operations, and appreciably affected abortion numbers nationwide. But with only one year of lost funding, Planned Parenthood was able to take steps to soften the blow significantly: It further reduced the one-year term to several months via a series of lawsuits, got big bailouts from blue-state governments, closed some clinic locations, and turned to some creative new forms of generating revenue (Botox, anyone?). If funding is restored, Planned Parenthood will still be on its feet, performing hundreds of thousands of abortions annually, with relatively minimal long-term damage.

But the one-year term also put Republicans into an incredibly difficult political position for 2026. Republicans must address this controversial question yet again, mere months before an election, forced to choose between the perceived preferences of moderates versus base voters.

Here are some tough questions that Republicans in Washington must answer as the July 4 deadline looms:

• Can the GOP maintain credibility with social conservatives if they let funding be restored? Republicans went out on a limb to defund Planned Parenthood last year. They invested real political capital into it. It was something they had pushed for and pledged for a decade, and they finally accomplished it. It feels beyond odd — self-contradictory, a betrayal of identity — to abandon such an effort after only one year.

• Are Republicans officially pro-life only half the time? Trump’s team blasted Senator Hawley for wanting to push pro-life talking points during an election year. Last time I checked, elections happen in America every other year. If the Republican Party drops the ball on defunding Planned Parenthood in 2026, after fighting for it in 2025, it cements the notion that the GOP can pursue pro-life goals only in odd-numbered years.

• I understand the fear of antagonizing moderates with anti-abortion efforts. But in a midterm election, which is a worse group to antagonize: moderates, or base voters whom you need to turn out? Base enthusiasm, or a lack thereof, is often the turning point between a successful or unsuccessful midterm. Pro-lifers vote, and they shouldn’t be given reasons to stay home.
• Can Republicans get all their pro-life senators in line behind a reconciliation bill? Tillis and Paul voted against the OBBBA in 2025 for reasons other than abortion provider defunding, which they would likely support in isolation. There are probably 51 votes in the Senate to defund Planned Parenthood over a longer term, and perhaps enough horsepower to override objections from the parliamentarian. To avoid re-re-litigation of this question, Republicans would be wise to find a reconciliation vehicle that defunds abortionists for at least a decade that does not depend on Susan Collins’s or Lisa Murkowski’s support for a 50th vote.

• If not now, when? 2026 is the GOP’s last chance to achieve a long-term defunding of Planned Parenthood. Republicans likely will not have control of the House, Senate, and White House again for a long time. If defunding doesn’t happen this summer, the issue is effectively abandoned for the foreseeable future.

• How much, really, do Republicans want to lessen abortion numbers? Losing more than a third of its revenue over a decade would force Planned Parenthood to close a huge number of brick-and-mortar locations. The Supreme Court could soon rule to eliminate regulations allowing the abortion pill, mifepristone, to be prescribed via telemedicine and shipped through the mail. Without telemedicine abortions (approximately 28 percent of all American abortions, a growing figure), and with fewer physical locations, the only possible outcome will be that abortion providers will be able to perform fewer abortions.

The Trump administration likes its “promises made, promises kept” mantra, but defunding abortionists is a promise that must also be maintained. Let’s hope Republicans will answer these questions with courage and principle. The time to act is now.