Republicans in Congress approved, for one year, a ban on abortion industry giant Planned Parenthood from getting Medicaid cash.
That expired over the summer.
But U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., says that it’s still a goal to cut off federal cash from flowing to the corporation.
A report at the Washington Examiner said he still is working on that as a priority.
“I would like to continue the defunding of Planned Parenthood on this, of course, and we’re looking for legislative vehicles to do that,” Johnson said.
The ban, from President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, lapsed in July, and Johnson explained that the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funding for abortion except in a couple of narrow circumstances, “is applied to every piece of legislation that’s relevant.”
But Planned Parenthood again is able to collect cash, which is fungible, for “contraception and screening for sexually transmitted diseases,” the report said.
Johnson didn’t provide a timeline for the work, but confirmed he has in mind legislative plans that could be used.
“You cannot use a cent of taxpayer dollars to fund an abortion,” Johnson said. “We absolutely must make sure that’s true.”
Pro-life activists are calling for the ban to be reactivated before November’s elections.
“Of course, we overturned Roe v. Wade with the [Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization] decision, but tragically, shockingly, the number of abortions has gone up because of the mail-in abortion pill, which is a dangerous, terribly dangerous thing,” Johnson said. “It’s led to the deaths of lots of women who have done that without supervision of a physician.”
The fight is before the courts again, too, as Louisiana charges the Food and Drug Administration allowance of telehealth and mail delivery of the abortion drug mifepristone infringes on states’ rights to ban abortion.
