Pro-Life Groups Lobby Senate for 10-Year Extension of Abortion Funding Ban

A coalition of pro-life groups, including Live Action, Students for Life, and CatholicVote, sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune urging a 10-year ban on federal funding for Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers before July 4, 2026.

The letter, signed by Live Action founder Lila Rose, Students for Life President Kristan Hawkins, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser, and 34 other pro-life leaders, stated that extending the prohibition for 10 years would represent one of the most meaningful pro-taxpayer reforms Congress can enact.

Fox News reported that the groups emphasized the urgency, with the current prohibition set to expire on that date. The current prohibition on federal tax dollar funding for abortion businesses was signed by President Donald Trump as part of the 2025 budget bill. Under this provision, Medicaid payments are barred from going to abortion businesses, including Planned Parenthood.

Before the 2025 budget bill provision took effect, Planned Parenthood received nearly $800 million annually in taxpayer funding, primarily through federal health programs. The letter from pro-life leaders asserted that at a time of historic federal debt and growing budgetary pressure, continuing to subsidize the abortion industry is neither fiscally responsible nor defensible.

The letter stated that the nation's largest abortion businesses engage in activities including providing and promoting abortion as a core organizational activity, offering or referring for gender transition interventions including for minors, and delivering sex education programs that promote inappropriate content to minors while denying parents meaningful transparency.

It argued that as the nation approaches the 250th anniversary of American independence in 2026, Congress has an obligation to ensure that federal spending reflects fiscal discipline, accountability, and respect for life. The pro-life leaders stated in the letter that a 10-year extension would provide long-term policy stability, protect taxpayers, and prevent future administrations from restoring funding through executive action alone.

They added that the budget reconciliation process remains the appropriate legislative vehicle to achieve the defunding objective and that defunding provisions fall within reconciliation's fiscal and policy scope.

Senate Republicans plan to conduct a test vote on a party-line funding package for immigration operations this week in April 2026, according to Fox News. The pro-life groups framed their request amid this broader fiscal context. Planned Parenthood stated that Republicans included a provision to make the prohibition permanent in a 2026 reconciliation package framework released by the Republican Study Committee.

The organization reported that 23 of its health clinics have been forced to close due to Trump's 2025 spending bill. More than 50 Planned Parenthood clinics closed in 18 states last year, with most located in the Midwest. Planned Parenthood called the 2025 budget bill’s bar on federal dollars for abortion businesses unconstitutional.

Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said that any member of Congress who supports this proposal is choosing to sacrifice our health care system and Planned Parenthood health center patients who already struggle to get care, just so they can score points for their anti-abortion agenda.

She added that President Trump and his backers in Congress have already caused irreparable harm when they passed a law defunding Planned Parenthood.

Supreme Court on April 2, 2025. The letter to Thune highlighted longstanding concerns that abortion businesses use Medicaid money for other services to subsidize abortion, despite federal law banning taxpayer money from covering most abortions. Rose told Fox News Digital that if Congress does not act, the abortion industry will once again have access to hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.

She described Planned Parenthood’s core business as abortion, existing to kill preborn children for profit, and noted it has become a major promoter of gender ideology, including puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors. The pro-life groups stressed in their letter that the financial stakes are significant, with hundreds of millions in annual tax dollars at stake.

They urged the Senate to use reconciliation to enact the strongest defunding measure possible under the law.

Planned Parenthood's statement indicated that the closure of its locations has left thousands of patients with fewer options, higher costs, and less freedom to make their own decisions about their lives, bodies, and futures. Johnson concluded that Planned Parenthood Action Fund will never stop fighting to protect everyone’s access to sexual and reproductive healthcare.

The push comes as congressional majorities could change this November.

Fox News noted that the prohibition reflected bipartisan precedent separating abortion from federal spending.