President Donald Trump, whose presidency is widely credited with reshaping the Supreme Court and ending Roe v. Wade, is now facing serious questions from pro-life conservatives over whether his administration has retreated in the fight against taxpayer-funded abortion.
Last week, Trump reportedly urged House Republicans working on health care legislation to be a little flexible on the Hyde Amendment, the long-standing federal provision that bars direct taxpayer funding of abortion. According to Western Journal, that message of flexibility has now been followed by an even more consequential move: the quiet restoration of tens of millions of dollars in Title X funds to Planned Parenthood affiliates, after months of withholding that had forced some clinics to close their doors.
On Tuesday, Politico reported that the American Civil Liberties Union dropped its lawsuit against the Trump administration after the Department of Health and Human Services reversed course on the frozen grants. The funds had originally been withheld beginning in March, when HHS notified providers that payments were being paused due to possible violations of civil rights laws and executive orders.
At the time, federal officials said they were scrutinizing 16 grantees operating more than 800 clinics to determine whether they were using controversial diversity, equity and inclusion protocols or whether they overtly [encouraged] illegal aliens to receive care. Some clinics saw their funding restored last summer, but others were left in limbo, and dozens ultimately shut down with no plans to reopen, Politico claimed.
Then, in a move that stunned many pro-life advocates, the outlet reported that the Trump administration quietly released the money in December. HHS official Amy Margolis, in a letter to several clinics, said that clarifications made by, and actions taken by, the grantees now justified the continuation of federal funding.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro confirmed the reversal in a December court filing, stating that the review is completed, and all grants at issue for Plaintiffs members have been restored, prompting the ACLU to abandon its legal challenge. For pro-life conservatives who have long argued that Planned Parenthood should not receive a single taxpayer dollar, this abrupt concession represents a serious and unnecessary retreat.
This is a massive blow to the pro-life cause. The American people, particularly those who supported Trump on the strength of his pro-life record, have come to expect far more resolve from his administration.
This is, after all, the president who appointed the justices who ultimately dismantled Roe v. Wade, returning abortion policy to the states and energizing the pro-life movement nationwide. The bar is therefore high for what Trump can and should do to halt what many conservatives rightly describe as child murder and to defund the organizations that facilitate it.
Meanwhile, the abortion lobby has been anything but passive in the post-Roe landscape. According to the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights, 11 states have expanded access to abortion, meaning, The right to abortion is protected by state statutes or state constitutions, and other laws and policies have created additional access to abortion care.
Another 15 states have protected access, defined as The right to abortion is protected by state law but there are limitations on access to care. That means more than half the country now either actively endorses or firmly safeguards abortion, with five additional states categorized as not protected, where abortion remains available but without explicit legal guarantees.
The group labels 12 states as hostile to abortion and 13 where the procedure is illegal, underscoring how divided the nation remains on this fundamental moral issue. Against that backdrop, it is especially alarming that the Trump administration appears to have stepped back, allowing pro-abortion forces to press forward with their grim project of ending the lives of the unborn while still benefiting from federal dollars.
Pro-lifers will again gather in Washington on Jan. 23 for the annual March for Life, buoyed in part by last summers congressional vote to strip hundreds of millions in federal Medicaid funds from Planned Parenthood. Yet even that victory may prove fragile, as Politico noted that lawmakers would need to pass another law to extend that cut beyond this summer, raising fears that the financial lifeline to the abortion industry could soon be restored.
Defenders of the administration may argue that complex legal and procedural issues forced HHS to relent in the Title X dispute. However, this White House has shown a willingness to fight aggressively in court on other matters, particularly immigration, making its comparatively soft posture here all the more troubling to social conservatives.
For many in Trumps base, abortion is not a peripheral concern but a defining moral and political priority. Roe sent abortion policy back to the states; the next logical step for a genuinely pro-life administration is to starve the abortion machine of taxpayer funding, not to refuel it under pressure from activist groups and bureaucratic maneuvering.
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