Catholics praise defunding of Planned Parenthood in major congressional budget bill

CNA Staff, May 22, 2025 / 13:48 pm

Catholic leaders and pro-life advocates on Thursday praised the passage of the House of Representatives’ major budget bill, hailing the reconciliation package’s defunding of abortion providers including Planned Parenthood. 

The massive spending and tax cut bill, called the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” includes a provision that forbids Medicaid dollars from flowing to abortion providers. The ban will last for 10 years, according to the text of the bill.

Federal funding will still be permitted for clinics that assist pregnant women in medical emergencies or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. 

‘The intrinsic dignity of the human person’

The abortion defunding measures have received strong support from Catholic advocates around the U.S. 

Ahead of the vote this week, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USSCB) praised the proposed measure in a letter to U.S. representatives and senators.

Stressing “the sacredness of every human life and the intrinsic dignity of the human person, created male and female, and made in the image and likeness of God,” the bishops said they “strongly support[ed]” the ending of taxpayer funding for abortion providers as well as a ban on funding for “gender transition for minors.”

Following the bill’s early passage on Thursday, Catholic Association Senior Fellow Ashley McGuire said in a statement that the organization “applaud[ed] the House’s efforts to protect women and children from exploitation at these dangerous clinics.” 

“American taxpayers overwhelmingly oppose funding abortions and harmful hormones for children,” McGuire said. “Planned Parenthood is a corporate abortion chain that is a leading provider of both, without basic and commonsense health and safety guardrails.”

“America’s women and children deserve better and American taxpayers should have no role in funding these atrocities,” she said. 

Students for Life Action President Kristan Hawkins, meanwhile, said in a statement that abortion providers were “cut out” of the bill and “told to go fund themselves.” 

The pro-life group “will now turn our attention to the U.S. Senate” in order to help secure the bill’s passage there, she said.

The advocacy group CatholicVote on Thursday said Catholics should be “ecstatic” at the House passage of the bill.

“We’re closer to defunding Planned Parenthood, ending federal funding of gender transition surgeries for minors, [and] expanding the Child Tax Credit,” the organization said in a post on X, urging Catholics to “pray the Senate passes this bill.”

SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said Congress “took a big step toward stopping forced taxpayer funding of the Big Abortion industry.”

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The passage of the bill was “a crucial win in the fight against America’s No. 1 cause of death — abortion,” Dannenfelser wrote. 

“There is no excuse for forcing taxpayers to prop up a scandal-ridden industry that prioritizes abortions, gender transitions, and partisan political activism instead of prenatal care, cancer screening, and other legitimate health services that are in continual decline,” she said. 

Dannenfelser urged the Senate to “do its part” and pass the bill. 

“More than 400,000 babies a year, their mothers, and countless American taxpayers are depending on you,” she said. 

Not all reaction from pro-life groups was positive, however. Katie Brown Xavios, the national director of the American Life League, said in a statement that the bill’s allowance for abortions to be performed in some limited circumstances “will still allow for the murder of millions.” 

“Give Planned Parenthood an inch, and it will take a mile,” she said. “If the exceptions are the only way Planned Parenthood will get paid, you better believe that every abortion will now become a life-or-death situation so that Planned Parenthood ensures that it will get its money.”