Judge rules Trump administration can withhold Medicaid funding from Maine abortion providers under provision of One Big Beautiful Bill Act
By: Dave Andrusko, originally published August 26, 2025, National Right to Life
Even as the Trump administration continues to press its appeal of a ruling by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Massachusetts’ federal court, on Monday Judge Lance E. Walker of the Federal District Court in Maine gave the administration a victory by upholding a provision of President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act which defunded providers of elective abortion from federal Medicaid funding for one year if they received more than $800,000 in federal funding in 2023.
The provision was part of the July 4th reconciliation bill signed by President Donald Trump.
Judge Walker said “that it would be an act of ‘judicial hubris’ for him to block a law produced through the democratic process from taking effect that would deny Medicaid funding to abortion providers like Maine Family Planning,” according to Nate Raymond of Reuters.
Planned Parenthood brought its successful challenge before Judge Talwani in Planned Parenthood Federation of America v. Kennedy. “Patients are likely to suffer adverse health consequences where care is disrupted or unavailable,” she wrote in her order. She also found that the law violated Planned Parenthood members’ equal protection rights under the 5th Amendment.
But in his 19-page opinion denying a request for a preliminary injunction, Judge Walker came a very different conclusion. He wrote that “the Judicial Branch, despite much generated confusion on this basic point, does not serve as an omnibus super-legislature to sit in final judgment as to which policy outcomes it prefers. That judgment rests with the people.” He added, “Congress is entitled to withhold federal funds and otherwise disassociate from conduct that is not enshrined as a constitutional right.”
Judge Walker also addressed the issue of whether they were, in some fashion, targeted.
Furthermore, in terms of likelihood of success on the merits, Plaintiff’s importuning of congressional irrationality and its allegation of presumed, monolithic malice toward Planned Parenthood overlooks the more plausible likelihood that the members of Congress who voted for the BBB’s prohibited entities provision most likely hold a variety of serious and sincerely held perspectives on the issue, including a rational desire to withhold a Medicaid subsidy from the primary providers of non-qualifying abortions. On this point, in opposition to Plaintiff’s narrative, Defendants have offered a competing narrative that the challenged provision is an incremental step taken by Congress to gradually remove non-qualifying abortion providers from the Medicaid program, describing Plaintiff, Planned Parenthood, and other affected providers as “Big Abortion.”
If, as expected, Maine Family Planning appeals, “the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit may well be forced to reconcile the differences between the cases before Judge Walker and Judge Talwani,” Zach Montague reported.
Dave Andrusko is Editor at National Right to Life in Woodbridge, Virginia.