Since Donald Trump re-entered the White House in 2025, we’ve witnessed judicial overreach like never before. For the most part, this has taken the form of district judges imposing sweeping nationwide injunctions against Trump’s executive orders and executive actions.
Although the Supreme Court ruled that district judges have exceeded “the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts” and limited the ability of district judges to issue nationwide injunctions, that has not stopped District Judge Indira Talwani.
Shortly after President Trump signed the reconciliation bill into law on July 4, 2026, Talwani blocked a provision that “bars Medicaid users from coverage with a health care provider that also provides abortion services.”
Unlike previous district judges who imposed injunctions on dubious grounds that were mostly related to presidential actions, the latest injunction applies to a law passed by Congress.
According to Talwani’s ruling on July 22, the provision “unconstitutionally punishes Planned Parenthood member organizations that do not provide abortions.”
Immediately after the new law was signed, Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit to preserve federal funding for all its “members,” including those that perform abortions.
“The Trump administration will not be allowed to enforce the funding ban against the Planned Parenthood members who cannot provide abortions because of state abortion bans, or who received less than $800,000 in Medicaid reimbursements in 2023,” Planned Parenthood gloated after Talwani’s ruling.
“The court has not yet ruled on whether it will grant preliminary injunctive relief to other members. We remain hopeful that the court will grant this relief. There will be nothing short of a public health crisis if Planned Parenthood members are allowed to be ‘defunded.’”
On the other side, the Trump administration argues that the budget provision is only intended to prevent “federal subsidies for Big Abortion.”
On January 24, 2025, President Trump issued an executive action spelling out that he will uphold the 1977 Hyde Amendment, which makes it illegal for federal funds to be used to pay for elective abortions.
“For nearly five decades, the Congress has annually enacted the Hyde Amendment and similar laws that prevent Federal funding of elective abortion, reflecting a longstanding consensus that American taxpayers should not be forced to pay for that practice,” Trump said. “However, the previous administration disregarded this established, commonsense policy by embedding forced taxpayer funding of elective abortions in a wide variety of Federal programs. It is the policy of the United States, consistent with the Hyde Amendment, to end the forced use of Federal taxpayer dollars to fund or promote elective abortion.”
For many years, Planned Parenthood has been accused of using federal tax dollars to fund abortions. Because money is fungible, it is nearly impossible to discern exactly what Planned Parenthood is actually doing with the hundreds of millions of dollars it receives from the Treasury.
Moreover, based on their latest annual report, Planned Parenthood is flush with cash and no longer needs federal funding support.
In 2024, Planned Parenthood reported more than “$2 billion in income and over $2.5 billion in net assets…Taxpayer funding in the form of government grants, contracts, and Medicaid reimbursements hit $792.2 million, over $2 million per day – an increase of $92.9 million from the previous report and representing 39% of Planned Parenthood’s overall revenue.”
Since 2013, “Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer funding has increased by 50%.” “Last year Planned Parenthood reported an excess of total revenue over total expenses of $178.6 million.”
Over the past decade, Planned Parenthood has vastly increased its total number of abortions performed while it has simultaneously reduced the routine medical services it provides. In other words, Planned Parenthood is moving resources from providing cancer screenings and other preventative services so that it can provide more abortions.
Consider: “Planned Parenthood performed a record 402,230 abortions in 2022-23 – an increase of over 9,500 (2%) from the previous year, and an increase of 23% since 2013. The number of patients increased by just 1% from the previous year and was down by 23% from 2013.”
For nearly 50 years, the law of the land has been simple: federal funds cannot be used for elective abortions. Thus, outfits like Planned Parenthood, which are more like abortion mills than medical providers, have no intrinsic right to hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.
As is the case more and more these days, I bet the Supreme Court will have the final say on this matter, and judging by their recent rulings, I’d bet my bottom dollar that this absurd injunction gets struck down. Never forget, our elected officials in Congress make the laws—not district judges.
Chris Talgo (ctalgo@heartland.org) is editorial director at The Heartland Institute.