Just days after President Donald Trump’s July 4 signing ceremony for his celebrated “One Big Beautiful Bill,” an Obama-appointed judge has halted its temporary defunding of abortion giant Planned Parenthood.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani of Massachusetts issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) on Monday halting the bill’s one-year defunding of abortionists from the Medicaid rolls. The 14-day restraining order came just hours after Planned Parenthood Federation of America and two PPFA affiliates — Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts and Planned Parenthood Association of Utah — filed a lawsuit in Boston.
The bill, H.R. 1, brands as a “prohibited entity” any organization that “provides for abortions,” cutting them off from Medicaid funding for one year. Planned Parenthood CEO Alexis McGill Johnson denounced the neutral legal criterion as a “targeted attack on Planned Parenthood.” She warned losing federal funding could force the nation’s largest abortion business to close up to 200 offices, some in blue states and “abortion sanctuaries.”
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Pro-life advocates rapidly denounced the ruling.
“In a display of politically motivated judicial activism, Judge Indira Talwani halted one of the great accomplishments of the Big Beautiful Bill: defunding Planned Parenthood. The people’s representatives voted for this measure — in fact, a large portion of the legislature wanted to defund Planned Parenthood for 10 years, not just one. But this lone federal judge thinks she has the power to wipe away the will of the people,” Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand.
“Imagine the level of arrogance it must take for a judge to believe that her personal beliefs trump the power given to Congress in the Constitution,” Szoch added.
“Given the lack of ambiguity in the statutory text, one can surmise that the TRO was likely predicated on an assertion that the statute is unconstitutional. What part of the Constitution prohibits Congress from defunding Planned Parenthood?” asked Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah). “Unless I’m missing something, this is an abuse of judicial power.”
The House of Representatives passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on Friday, one day before the president’s desired July 4 deadline. The passage happened two days after Vice President J.D. Vance cast the tie-breaking vote to advance the sweeping bill through the Republican-controlled Senate.
“Congress really should have just eliminated Planned Parenthood funding completely, not just for one year. If we’re going to get ridiculous resistance decisions like this, at least make the legal fight meaningful,” said Casey Mattox, vice president for legal and judicial strategy at Americans for Prosperity.
“The Planned Parenthood TRO is probably the most insane judicial action this administration. A TRO directing an appropriation in the face of enacted statute is like Michelangelo-level resistance,” said Mike Fragoso, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. “Some have argued SCOTUS should reassign the case and there’s a lot to that.”
LifeNews Note: Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.
The post Judge Forcing Americans to Fund Planned Parenthood is an “Abuse of Power” appeared first on LifeNews.com.
Author: Ben Johnson
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