Mike Johnson Says Trump's Massive Agenda Bill Will Defund 'Big Abortion'

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) promised this week that he will work to realize one of Republicans’ long-held goals: defunding Planned Parenthood. 

Johnson announced Tuesday during a keynote speech for anti-abortion organization Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life that President Donald Trump’s economic agenda will include defunding “big abortion” — a disparaging phrase used by the religious right to refer to Planned Parenthood. Trump’s administration has been working with the House speaker to wrap his domestic policy agenda into “one big, beautiful bill,” as the president often refers to it. 

“In the weeks ahead, the House is gonna be working on the one big, beautiful bill,” Johnson told the gala crowd. “We’re absolutely making it clear to everybody that this bill is going to redirect funds away from big abortion and to federally qualified health centers.”

This is the first time since Trump took office that Republican leadership in Congress has explicitly stated its plan.  

Republicans have been trying to defund Planned Parenthood for decades, and the Trump administration has made it clear that one of their top priorities is to slash federal funding for Planned Parenthood. Most recently, the administration cut millions in family planning grants to the national reproductive health organization. 

“After months of threats and ongoing attacks on Planned Parenthood and the care health centers provide, Speaker Johnson is finally making it plain: President Trump and his backers in Congress are willing to threaten health care for millions of people by shutting down Planned Parenthood health centers and ending vital access to care in communities nationwide,” Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, told HuffPost. 

“‘Defunding’ Planned Parenthood would be catastrophic to communities, put countless lives at risk and wreak havoc on our public health system.” 

Planned Parenthood has nearly 600 health centers around the country, providing abortion and other reproductive health care to over 2 million patients annually. Since Roe fell, some Planned Parenthood clinics have struggled financially, and it’s likely to get worse if Johnson’s promise to “defund big abortion” is kept. 

Johnson went on to discuss the “over 2,700 pregnancy resource centers” that are “helping more and more women choose life.”

“I’m so grateful that SBA and the Charlotte Lozier Institute have been so instrumental in raising awareness about these important centers, which provide comprehensive care for the vulnerable,” he said. “And, you know what, they outnumber big abortion providers 15-to-1, so that’s something we can celebrate.”

The “federally qualified health centers” Johnson referred to are anti-abortion pregnancy centers, sometimes referred to as crisis pregnancy centers, known for peddling misinformation based on religious rhetoric that is not medically accurate. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists defines anti-abortion pregnancy centers as “facilities that represent themselves as legitimate reproductive health care clinics providing care for pregnant people but actually aim to dissuade people from accessing certain types of reproductive health care, including abortion care and even contraceptive options.” 

Last month, Trump announced the administration cut $65.8 million in family planning grants under Title X, a federal program dedicated to providing family-planning services for free or discounted prices to about 4 million low-income Americans every year. 

The funding cut will have devastating impacts on family planning services across the country, but it will hit Planned Parenthood particularly hard. The organization is one of the largest Title X providers in the country. In the month since Title X funding was slashed, at least six Planned Parenthood health centers have been forced to close their doors.

The Trump administration also recently joined a Supreme Court case alongside South Carolina, arguing that states should be allowed to exclude Planned Parenthood from their Medicaid programs. If the court sides with the Trump administration, Planned Parenthood would lose critical Medicaid funds. The loss of Title X funding, along with Medicaid programs, would effectively defund Planned Parenthood. 

“Federal Medicaid funds don’t pay for abortion except in rare exceptions, but that’s not stopping these lawmakers from going after Planned Parenthood,” McGill Johnson said. “They’re set on depriving patients — particularly people who already have the hardest time getting health care — of access to affordable cancer screenings, birth control, STI testing and treatment, and many other essential reproductive health care services.” 

“Nineteen million Planned Parenthood supporters in all 50 states are prepared to fight like hell to stop this egregious attack on their health care and make clear yet again that patients — not the government — should be in control of their own medical decisions,” she said. 

Watch Johnson’s full speech below. 

Related...