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The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a scathing legal memo July 14, condemning a federal judge’s decision to temporarily block the Trump administration’s one-year ban on taxpayer dollars going to Planned Parenthood.
“Simply put, Planned Parenthood has no right to taxpayer money, and this Court should not invent such a right,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote in the memo. “The Court should uphold Congress’s lawful exercise of its authority to decide to whom it will entrust taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars.”
The funding freeze is part of President Donald Trump’s recently passed “Big Beautiful Bill.” It bars abortion facilities from receiving Medicaid reimbursements for one year.
On July 7, US District Judge Indira Talwani issued a 14-day restraining order on the measure just hours after Planned Parenthood filed suit. The abortion provider claimed the freeze violated its First Amendment rights.
Four days later, Talwani amended the order after the administration asked the court to dissolve it, again siding with Planned Parenthood. In her amended ruling, she wrote that Planned Parenthood is likely to succeed in its constitutional challenge.
In the July 14 memo, HHS accused Planned Parenthood of attempting to “supplant duly enacted legislation with their own policy preferences.”
The agency defended the funding restriction as a reflection of “[a]ll three democratically elected components of the Federal Government.”
Responding to Planned Parenthood’s First Amendment concerns, HHS argued that the law targets “action, not advocacy.”
“If Planned Parenthood and its affiliates cease providing those abortions, they could receive Medicaid funds even as they continue to advocate for abortion,” the memo stated. “And restricting funding for abortion providers does not violate the First Amendment.”
Kennedy further argued that the lawsuit aims to “usurp” a legitimate exercise of congressional authority.
“Even before Dobbs,” he wrote, “the Supreme Court had made clear the Government can ‘subsidize family planning services which will lead to conception and childbirth,’ while declining to ‘promote or encourage abortion.’”
The legal battle is expected to continue as the restraining order remains in effect.
