February 12, 2025
With electrifying momentum for the Republican Majority in Washington, D.C., following the recent election of pro-life President Donald J. Trump, pro-life Members of Congress face limitless opportunities to protect life. When it comes to defunding Planned Parenthood and pulling its financial foundation from its roots, there is not just one tool in the toolbox that the pro-life movement must use.
Using the upcoming reconciliation process in the U.S. House of Representatives to defund and debar Planned Parenthood offers one more path forward.
No non-profit that violently butchers tiny humans in the womb and allegedly breaks the law in one of America’s most important Presidential campaigns should receive nearly $700 million a year from hard-working, tax-paying Americans. This month, House Republicans have a golden ticket to stop the abortion Goliath through the reconciliation process by raising a vote to defund Planned Parenthood.
Students for Life Action’s (SFLAction) Make America Pro-Life Again Roadmap paints the vision to abolish abortion utilizing multiple tools, including attacking mini-Roes and Chemical Abortion Pill trafficking. Additionally, budget reconciliation as a defunding strategy is at the top of our list for 2025.
Understanding budget reconciliation on its own can come with questions and even confusion. We’ll breakdown what budget reconciliation is and how it could more easily take funding away from Planned Parenthood.
Defining the terms: Reconciliation is a special legislative process involving the budget where the U.S. House can bi-pass the U.S. Senate filibuster and allocate what they want to cut and what they want to fund.
According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, “Budget reconciliation is a legislative procedure made available as a result of the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act. Reconciliation allows for expedited consideration of certain and specified changes in law to align spending, revenue, and the debt limit with agreed-upon budget targets. Over the 50-year history of the Act, 23 budget reconciliation bills have been enacted, most recently the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act” (emphasis added).
This legislative process is a powerful tool, especially if one party has a unified majority. Well, it’s 2025 and Republicans wield the majority in the House, Senate, and White House. Since they have a majority, pro-life Republicans should seize this opportunity to wield their power to stop funding death and give every child a shot at the American dream.
Keep in mind: Congress has the power of the purse and can determine what they want to change (what to cut or fund). So, if U.S. Senate Republicans want to take out what Congress puts in, they can, but Congress ultimately has the prerogative to put forward what they want to fund or cut.
The Budget Reconciliation Process:
- The Budget Committee and the Speaker of the House and leadership will give instructions on what to cut and what to fund. Likely, the Commerce Committee is the committee cutting Planned Parenthood funding (however, this is alleged because courts have said abortion goes across state lines).
- For reconciliation, the House has a line-by-line vote on the budget, with a simple majority.
- Then, it will go to the U.S. Senate. Normally with other bills, the Senate filibuster is in place and needs a 2/3 senate majority in place. However, budget reconciliation only requires 51 votes in the Senate and because there’s a time limit to debate the bill, there is no filibuster.
This is key to why it’s easier to take funding away from Planned Parenthood right now. There is (1) no filibuster and (2) and a simple majority vote in the U.S. Senate.
Why this is timely: This week, the Budget Committee will put together a toppling budget and will give instructions to all the House committees (like the Judiciary Committee or the Commerce Committee) of what minimum amount to cut.
Timeline: House Budget Committee meets soon to present to Congress the topline budget they have been given from the White House.
For now, Congress cannot start cutting or allocating funds until they have a set budget. Once they have a budget, there will be a budget resolution that is supposed to go into committee on Thursday, Feb. 13, with funding that will run out on March 15, 2025.
The Pro-Life Takeaway: Congress has an open door to get things they care about done through reconciliation. Congress could cut Planned Parenthood funding through reconciliation if they can rally 218 votes. Currently, Republicans have a slim 219 majority out of 434-sitting members in Congress. So, it won’t be easy, but this is a golden ticket opportunity pro-life Republicans cannot afford to pass up.
If money allocated to Planned Parenthood is cut through the reconciliation process in Congress, the reconciliation bill will go to the Senate. There, the Senate only needs 51 votes and does not need Democrat support to get sufficient votes to make this happen. This time, senators cannot use the normal 60 vote threshold to pass things because there is no filibuster, and reconciliation only requires 51 votes. Senators will likely use a grueling but responsible line-by-line process to determine what to cut or what to fund. Because of this, senators will only pick the battles they care about.
Simply put: the Congressional reconciliation process presents a rare opportunity for Republicans to save preborn lives. SFLAction will ardently urge House members to force the Senate to take the vote on cutting Planned Parenthood spending.
Momentum to cut funding is already underway in Congress. On November 22, 2024, 112 pro-life champions in Congress demanded the Government Accountability Office investigate how Planned Parenthood used public funds and requested a report from the past three years.
This week, newly elected Rep. Mark Harris (NC-08) valiantly offered to spearhead or support any efforts to defund Planned Parenthood in this reconciliation process.
Still, fighting for life is not limited to Members of Congress. It will also be an intense fight in the Senate. While some senators fight tooth-and-nail to protect abortion, many senators are on the side of life. Just last month, Sen. Rand Paul re-introduced the Defund Planned Parenthood Act, preventing tax-payer dollars from going to committing abortions.
Among the co-sponsors for this Act in the Senate are: Sens. Roger Marshall (R-KS), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), Ted Budd (R-NC), Eric Schmitt (R-MO), Thom Tillis (R-NC), and Ted Cruz (R-TX).
“Sen. Rand Paul’s bill to prohibit federal funding of Planned Parenthood represents a significant effort to enact President Trump’s stated agenda of reducing the role of the federal government on the issue of abortion. As long as taxpayers underwrite the nation’s largest abortion vendor, abortion is federal. In mandates and money, the federal government has acted with prejudice against pro-life people and for abortion. In a completely partisan way, Planned Parenthood also has worked to defeat Republicans to replace them with radical pro-abortion Democrats, who have ensured that the checks keep coming. America’s healthcare dollars should be invested in care that takes care of every patient, in and outside of the womb, and this bill also makes no exceptions for Planned Parenthood, as they should be debarred and defunded as bad actors in the healthcare space. Students for Life Action supports the Defund Planned Parenthood Act and will score both the votes and co-sponsorship of the measure,” said Kristan Hawkins, President of Students for Life of America and Students for Life Action.
Engaging in Congress’ reconciliation process to cut funds to Planned Parenthood is nothing new.
In 2015, Mike Lee wrote about using budget reconciliation to repeal Obamacare while offering his approval of defunding Planned Parenthood, writing, “We support the defunding of Planned Parenthood, and the strengthening of other measures to protect the dignity of human life at all stages of development.”
With a pro-life president in the White House, we are in a new golden era of opportunity in America. The tide is turning against abortion. Roe is reversed. The time to put pressure on our elected officials to use the tools and circumstances given to them to benefit the most vulnerable among us, is now.
As SFLAction has pointed out before, “Because Planned Parenthood has qualified to participate in all kinds of programs or been given grants, they can keep cashing checks. To DISQUALIFY them, we will need to show that there are serious issues in an organization they admit was founded by a confirmed racist. Unsurprisingly, the issues didn’t stop with its founding, meaning there is a case to be made to cut them off.”
Writing laws are worth little if Congress continues to fund with taxpayer dollars the killing of preborn children. At SFLAction, we urge Republican Members of Congress who are pro-life to defund Planned Parenthood in this month’s upcoming reconciliation process. Building a culture of life for our children and future generations begins by having the courage to defund the Planned Parenthood death machine. Let’s use all the tools we have. Our preborn children are entitled to equal protection of the laws, and it’s time Congress uses its power to protect America’s most innocent in the womb.