Utah’s Planned Parenthood sues over Medicaid defunding in ‘Big Beautiful Bill’

The new federal law will prevent the nonprofit from being reimbursed for care to Medicaid patients.

For over three years, Planned Parenthood Association of Utah has argued in court that Utah’s constitution protects access to abortions.

But as the state’s near-total abortion ban remains on hold, Utah’s primary abortion provider is now also suing to fend off a federal threat to reproductive care in the Beehive State: a measure in the “Big Beautiful Bill” that seeks to defund the organization by blocking patients from using Medicaid there.

The Utah chapter joined its parent entity Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, in a complaint filed in Boston federal court Monday. It argues a provision in the massive budget bill signed into law Friday preventing nonprofits that provide elective abortions from being reimbursed for treating Medicaid patients, who are among the lowest income Americans, is unconstitutional.

“Here in Utah, we are used to politicians trying to strip away our rights for political gain,” Shireen Ghorbani, the interim president of Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, said in a statement. “We haven’t backed down before, and we won’t now.”

Last year, over 2,000 people covered by Medicaid sought care at Utah’s Planned Parenthood clinics, according to the Monday filing, and in fiscal 2023, the local organization received $706,251 in Medicaid reimbursements.

The bill made other sweeping changes to health care access, including implementing a work requirement for many adults on Medicaid, increasing the amount Medicaid recipients pay out-of-pocket for care, introducing more barriers to enrolling in federal marketplace plans and cutting some immigrants off from federal insurance.

Approximately 188,000 Utahns are at risk of losing health coverage under the new law, according to an estimate by the Congressional Joint Economic Committee’s Democratic staff. All six members of Utah’s federal delegation voted to pass the bill.

Although Planned Parenthood is largely being targeted for providing abortions, which are currently legal up to 18 weeks in Utah, reproductive health services at its six clinics in the state go beyond terminating pregnancies.

Utah patients more frequently turn to Planned Parenthood’s clinics for birth control and sexually transmitted infection testing. According to the court filing, approximately 91% of visits to the Utah organization’s clinics in 2024 were for services other than abortion.

Since President Donald Trump took office, Utah has already begun seeing the impacts of his administration’s attacks on the organization that has offered family planning care in the state for over half a century.

At the start of the year, Utah had eight Planned Parenthood clinics. But after the Department of Health and Human Services froze millions in federal funds that helped pay for family planning care — not abortions — for the poorest Utahns, the nonprofit was forced to close a quarter of its locations in the state.

The two shuttered clinics were in Logan and St. George — the furthest locations from Salt Lake City, and often the most accessible for rural residents.

Providing free and deeply discounted family planning services has become more difficult for the clinics that remain open, and Planned Parenthood Association of Utah has had to raise many of its fees to continue operating.

During this year’s legislative session, state lawmakers blocked the organization from providing sex education, and in a previous year, the Legislature attempted to ban abortion clinics from operating. It later repealed that law after it was enjoined in court and would have likely delayed a ruling in the larger abortion ban lawsuit.

This story is developing and may be updated.