BOSTON, Dec 30 (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday allowed President Donald Trump’s administration to enforce in a collection of Democratic-led states a provision of his signature tax and domestic policy bill that deprives Planned Parenthood health centers of Medicaid funding if they perform abortions.
A three-judge panel of the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at the administration’s request put on hold an injunction issued by a lower-court judge who barred the law from being enforced in 22 states and the District of Columbia.
It marked the latest instance of the appeals court lifting an order by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani preventing the law from being implemented, after the 1st Circuit on December 12 overturned a ruling she issued in another case brought by Planned Parenthood declaring the law unconstitutional.
A provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed by the Republican-led Congress, bars Medicaid funding for tax-exempt organizations that provide family planning and reproductive health services if they perform abortions and received more than $800,000 in Medicaid funds during the 2023 fiscal year.
Planned Parenthood says the law was passed with it in mind and is already having devastating effects, resulting in at least 20 of its health centers closing since Trump signed the measure into law in July.
After the 1st Circuit earlier this year paused Talwani’s initial injunction in Planned Parenthood’s favor, a group of Democratic state attorneys general asked her to block the law’s enforcement again but on different grounds.
The judge, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, agreed to do so on December 2, saying the states were likely to succeed in establishing that the law constitutes an unconstitutional retroactive condition on their participation in the Medicaid healthcare program.
But Tuesday’s 1st Circuit panel, comprised only of judges appointed by Democratic presidents, said the Trump administration had demonstrated it was likely to prevail on the merits when its appeal is ultimately heard.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
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