{"id":334775,"date":"2025-07-21T10:47:36","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T15:47:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=334775"},"modified":"2025-07-21T00:18:40","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T05:18:40","slug":"maine-abortion-chain-sues-beautiful-bill-defunds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/maine-abortion-chain-sues-beautiful-bill-defunds\/","title":{"rendered":"Maine abortion chain sues as &#8216;Big Beautiful Bill&#8217; defunds abortion providers"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p>A lawsuit <a href=\"https:\/\/reproductiverights.org\/center-sues-trump-administration-over-medicaid-defunding\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">filed<\/a> by The Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of a Maine abortion chain challenges the provision in the federal government&#8217;s reconciliation bill that prevents businesses that commit elective abortions from receiving federal Medicaid reimbursements.<\/p>\n<p>There are 19 federally qualified health centers in Maine that receive federal funding which typically do not commit abortions.<\/p>\n<h2>Key Takeaways:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>On July 4, President Trump signed a budget bill that includes a provision barring any elective abortion business from receiving federal Medicaid reimbursement.<\/li>\n<li>Planned Parenthood immediately filed a lawsuit against the provision, and now Maine Family Planning has followed its lead.<\/li>\n<li>Maine Family Planning runs 18 facilities in the state and claims that it is vital to individuals and families in rural areas, but there are 19 federally qualified health care centers available across the state for low-income families.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>The Details:<\/h2>\n<p>On July 16, the Center for Reproductive Rights filed a lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as well as the Centers for Medicare &amp; Medicaid Services (CMS) and CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz on behalf of Maine Family Planning (MFP), Maine&#8217;s largest network of abortion facilities.<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit asks for emergency relief from the law and challenges the provision of the federal budget bill, dubbed the &#8220;Big, Beautiful Bill,&#8221; that strips abortion businesses of federal Medicaid funding, which comes from taxpayer dollars. The lawsuit claims that the provision violates MFP&#8217;s constitutional rights.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, MFP operates 18 facilities in Maine, including many in rural areas. It says that it is the &#8220;sole health care provider for roughly 70% of its patients \u2014 half of whom rely on Medicaid.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are suing because this law will prevent thousands of Mainers from going to their trusted health care provider at Maine Family Planning, simply because they provide abortion care among many other services,\u201d said Nancy Northup, President and CEO at the Center for Reproductive Rights.<\/p>\n<h2>The Big Picture:<\/h2>\n<p>A 2025\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kofc.org\/en\/resources\/communications\/polls\/2025-marist-poll-results-all-crosstabulations.pdf\">Knights of Columbus\/Marist poll<\/a> found that 57% of American adults \u201coppose\u201d or \u201cstrongly oppose\u201d tax dollars paying for abortions. Although federal Medicaid funding can&#8217;t be used to <em>directly<\/em> pay for abortions (except in cases of rape or the life of the mother), money is fungible \u2014 meaning, those funds are paying for the same building, same utilities, same provider salaries, etc., and therefore, those funds are still supporting the business of abortion.<\/p>\n<p>Maine ranks second in the nation for the number of primary care physicians practicing in rural communities (99.5 per 100,000 vs 54.5 per 100,000 national average). The state has at least <a href=\"https:\/\/data.hrsa.gov\/data\/reports\/datagrid?gridName=FQHCs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">19 federally qualified health centers<\/a> (FQHCs) available that receive funding under CMS, which offer primary care, have interdisciplinary teams, and are community-based and patient-directed. They must accept all patients, regardless of their ability to pay.<\/p>\n<h2>The Bottom Line:<\/h2>\n<p>Americans don&#8217;t need to use abortion businesses for their health care, and they don&#8217;t want their taxpayer dollars to fund businesses that kill preborn children in the womb and call it health care.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b><i>Follow Live Action News on\u00a0<\/i><\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveactionnewsonline\/\"><b><i>Facebook<\/i><\/b><\/a><b><i>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/i><\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/LiveActionOrg\/\"><b><i>Instagram<\/i><\/b><\/a><b><i>\u00a0for more pro-life news.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A lawsuit filed by The Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of a Maine abortion chain challenges the provision in the federal government&#8217;s reconciliation bill that prevents businesses that commit elective abortions from receiving federal Medicaid reimbursements. There are 19 federally qualified health centers in Maine that receive federal funding which typically do not commit [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":76795,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[3473,11],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Maine abortion chain sues as &#039;Big Beautiful Bill&#039; defunds abortion providers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Maine Family Planning operates 18 abortion facilities in the state and claims it is vital to individuals and families in rural areas.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/maine-abortion-chain-sues-beautiful-bill-defunds\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Maine abortion chain sues as &#039;Big Beautiful Bill&#039; defunds abortion providers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Maine Family Planning operates 18 abortion facilities in the state and claims it is vital to individuals and families in rural areas.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/maine-abortion-chain-sues-beautiful-bill-defunds\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveaction\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-07-21T15:47:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-07-21T05:18:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/maine-family-planning.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"672\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"372\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nancy Flanders\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Nancy Flanders\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/maine-abortion-chain-sues-beautiful-bill-defunds\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/maine-abortion-chain-sues-beautiful-bill-defunds\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Nancy Flanders\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/d61ca3dd1aacf12635bdf71d75c328ef\"},\"headline\":\"Maine abortion chain sues as &#8216;Big Beautiful Bill&#8217; 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