First Circuit Reverses Block on Trump’s Planned Parenthood Cuts

A federal appeals court has given the Trump administration the green light to withhold Medicaid reimbursements from Planned Parenthood locations offering abortion care while lower court litigation over the matter plays out.

The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on Friday vacated lower court injunctions blocking the US Department of Health and Human Services from excluding Planned Parenthood clinics from reimbursements.

The legal fight now returns to the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts, where Planned Parenthood initially sued the Trump administration.

At the center of the dispute is a provision in Republicans’ 2025 tax and spending law that withholds Medicaid dollars from abortion service providers that meet certain criteria, which Planned Parenthood alleged specifically tries to punish the organization and its affiliates.

Writing for the First Circuit, Judge Gustavo Gelpí said the provision didn’t “inflict punishment.”

That the provision “regulates only certain abortion providers does not mean that it punishes those that it does regulate,” Gelpí wrote.

Rather, Gelpí said, the provision “uses Congress’s taxing and spending power” to leave Planned Parenthood with “a difficult choice: give up federal Medicaid funds and continue to provide abortion services or continue receiving such funds by abandoning the provision of abortion services.”

“Today, a court has once again allowed the Trump administration to enforce Congress’s unconstitutional ‘defund’ of Planned Parenthood — enabling their attempts to block access to care for patients most in need and force Planned Parenthood health centers to the financial brink,” Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement.

“The intent is clear: They want to shut down Planned Parenthood health centers and make it harder for everyone, everywhere to get the health care they need,” she said.

“This is far from over. Planned Parenthood will never stop fighting for patients, and we will never stop serving the communities that rely on Planned Parenthood health centers for care,” McGill Johnson said.

Also on the panel considering the case were Judges Lara Montecalvo and Seth Aframe.

The case is Planned Parenthood Fed. of Am. v. Kennedy, 1st Cir., No. 25-01698, Opinion filed 12/12/25