Senate Republicans’ ‘Big, Beautiful’ Backdoor Ban

The GOP's budget bill could shutter 1 in 4 abortion providers—even in pro-choice states

Congressional Republicans have spent the last few years now pledging they won’t ban abortion—just impose “reasonable limits,” perhaps a “minimum national standard” sprinkled here and there.

And now, here we are: Senate Republicans just voted to pass a budget bill that effectively serves as a national backdoor abortion ban—defunding Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers across the country.

Planned Parenthood estimates that two-thirds of its brick-and-mortar health centers across the country could be forced to shutter, with 90% of those closures happening in states where abortion is protected. In fact, a whopping 75% of abortion-providing clinics in pro-choice states could close.

What does that mean on a broad scale? One in four of all abortion providers in the U.S. could soon close—leaving abortion legal but almost impossible to access (at least in a clinical setting) in many states.

In other words, the so-called “big, beautiful bill” is actually Republicans’ “big, beautiful” backdoor ban on abortion.

Not-so-coincidentally, this bill comes at a time when Republicans are aggressively attacking abortion pills and telehealth—which account for one in four abortions in the U.S. They’re pointing to one bogus “study” after another to misrepresent telemedicine abortion access as unsafe—and to pressure Trump’s FDA to adopt medically unnecessary restrictions.

If patients can't access telemedicine abortion, they’re naturally forced to seek in-clinic care, which might not exist if their state bans abortion. And now, even in states where abortion is legal, in-clinic care could soon be pushed even further out of reach, if not decimated altogether.

Republicans’ budget bill also comes right on the heels of the Supreme Court ruling last week that South Carolina can strip Planned Parenthood of Medicaid funds, opening the door for other states to do the same. Meanwhile, in April, the Trump administration froze over $65 million in federal grants for Planned Parenthood affiliates and other reproductive health providers.

So, where else are patients to turn for basic health care? Here’s what Planned Parenthood President Alexis McGill-Johnson says:

“No other provider can step in and replace the care that Planned Parenthood provides to the millions of patients who could lose access to care due to this cruel bill.

By targeting Planned Parenthood health centers, this legislation will cause particular harm to patients living in remote or rural areas who already travel far distances to get the essential health care they need. Stripping these communities of access to affordable health services like birth control, STI testing, and cancer screenings is not just bad policy—it’s reckless and will worsen the country’s already broken health care system.”

All of these galling, rapid-fire developments will likely push pregnant patients to anti-abortion, religious hospitals or crisis pregnancy centers, which are receiving more taxpayer dollars than ever. Recall that most CPCs provide no actual health care and can actively endanger their pregnant patients. (The fake ‘clinics’ are even expanding into telehealth.)

The original budget bill also included language that would bar Affordable Care Act marketplace plans that offer abortion coverage from cost-sharing reductions—effectively banning ACA plans from covering abortion. The Senate parliamentarian struck that piece of the bill last week, but on Monday decided the language designating abortion providers as “prohibited entities” ineligible for federal funding could stand.

Now, we’re well on our way to the defunding of Planned Parenthood and abortion providers across the country—even as the Hyde amendment already prohibits these organizations from using federal funding for most abortion services.

“Defunding Planned Parenthood has been a long-sought goal of Republican anti-choice extremists who want to force women to stay pregnant no matter their circumstances. Today, they are one step closer to this dystopian vision,” Sen. Patty Murray said on Tuesday.

We already know what happens when Planned Parenthood is defunded, because we’ve seen it on the state-level: When Mike Pence’s Indiana defunded Planned Parenthood, for example—shutting down one county’s sole HIV testing center—an HIV outbreak promptly unfolded across that county.

The financial impacts of this bill will also be devastating: As we wrote on Monday, stripping these health providers of federal funding will cost taxpayers $52 million over the next decade—as taxpayers shoulder the massive costs of when patients are denied birth control, STI treatment, cancer screenings, and more. And the Congressional Budget Office estimates that defunding Planned Parenthood would raise the deficit by about $300 million.

On top of all of this, the bill would slash $930 billion from Medicaid, kick at least 17 million people off of their health insurance, and allocate $75 billion to new immigration jails and escalate ICE’s already heinous war on immigrant communities. According to Planned Parenthood, 53% of its patients access their services through programs like Medicaid or the Title X family planning program.

It doesn’t matter what Republicans call this bill, or, more tellingly, what they don’t call it—this is a backhanded, national backdoor ban on abortion.