On July 4, 2026, American taxpayers celebrate the 250th birthday of our nation, but they’ll also begin giving money again to the largest abortion organization, Planned Parenthood. That’s unless Congress acts.

Last summer, Congress included a one-year “defund” provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The law blocked Medicaid payments to certain abortion organizations for “the 1-year period beginning on the date of the enactment” of the law, July 4, 2025. Simply put, Planned Parenthood and similar organizations were cut off from federal Medicaid reimbursement for one year. That year is coming to an end.

Some Republican lawmakers apparently think this is a difficult political question. It is not.

The whispered argument in Washington, D.C., is familiar: It is the summer of an election year. Do we really want ads saying, “Congressman X defunded Planned Parenthood”? Won’t Democrats accuse Republicans of taking away women’s health care? Won’t Planned Parenthood spend millions telling voters Republicans are extremists?

Of course they will. That is the point. The attack ads are coming either way.

Planned Parenthood Action Fund is publicly campaigning against House Republicans over defunding. Its own press room announced a new investment of nearly $2 million to keep House Republicans from “defunding” Planned Parenthood, after a prior $1.5 million campaign on the same issue. Its 2026 endorsements page says “the stakes could not be higher,” attacking President Donald Trump and Republicans, warning that anti-abortion lawmakers want to make the Medicaid defund permanent.

Republicans face a choice. They can be attacked for defunding Planned Parenthood after actually defunding Planned Parenthood. Or they can be attacked for defunding Planned Parenthood after quietly letting the money flow again.

The first option is a fight that can be won and is good public policy. The second is political malpractice.

The case against funding Planned Parenthood does not require hyperbole. It requires reading Planned Parenthood’s own documents. Planned Parenthood is not a local charity that stumbled into politics. It is the nation’s largest abortion organization. Its 2024-2025 annual report lists 434,450 abortions committed, each of which is a precious child killed. The same year, they reported $832 million in government reimbursements and grants. It also lists tens of millions of dollars spent on explicit sexual education, public policy, and advocacy expenses.

The organization says its health centers provide hormone therapy and other “gender-affirming” services. Its website lists estrogen and anti-androgen hormone therapy, testosterone hormone therapy, puberty blockers, surgery referrals, and transition support. Planned Parenthood has been described as the second-largest provider of gender hormone therapies in the United States. And they offer nothing to minors who regret transitioning.

Add it up. Planned Parenthood kills hundreds of thousands of preborn children through abortion, pushes ideological sex education, provides gender-transition services, and then turns around to politically mobilize against the very lawmakers debating whether to subsidize it.

This is the organization some Republicans are considering returning to the taxpayer trough.

There is a saying in politics: You cannot beat something with nothing. True. But there is another lesson Republicans should’ve learned by now: You cannot appease a political machine into silence.

If Republicans extend the defunding, Planned Parenthood and its allies will say Republicans defunded Planned Parenthood. That would be accurate. Fine. Let the argument be had honestly.

If Republicans fail to extend the defunding, Planned Parenthood and its allies will still say Republicans defunded Planned Parenthood, threatened basic care, and tried to shut down clinics. The ads will not disappear. The mailers will not be recalled. The pro-abortion activists will not send thank-you notes. The only people who will notice the retreat are the voters Republicans count on to knock doors, write checks, make calls, and turn out in ugly political weather.

That is the forgotten political cost here: base demoralization.

For pro-life voters, defunding Planned Parenthood is not the ceiling. It is the floor. It is the least a Republican Congress can do. Many of these voters have accepted that change is hard and comes slowly. They have accepted imperfect bills, narrow margins, Senate rules, court fights, and half measures dressed up as strategy. But asking them to accept nearly a billion taxpayer dollars flowing back to the abortion industry, after Republicans had already stopped it for a year, is a different thing.

Republicans should not fund their opposition.

The ads are coming. The accusations are coming. The headlines are coming. Let’s at least reap the reward while bearing the cost.

Defund Planned Parenthood and defend that defunding without flinching. Better to be attacked for taking the hill than mocked by your own voters for abandoning it.

***

Noah Brandt is the Vice President of Communications & Government Relations at Live Action

Menu

Defunding Planned Parenthood Is Courageous, Appeasing It Is Not