October 2, 2026
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A network of clinics in Maine will not resume getting Medicaid funds during its lawsuit over Trump administration cuts to abortion providers, a judge ruled Monday.
The decision against Maine Family Planning came despite a ruling last month by another federal judge, who said Planned Parenthood clinics around the country must continue to be reimbursed for Medicaid funding as the provider wrangles with the Trump administration over efforts to defund it. That legal fight continues.
Without Medicaid, the much smaller provider in Maine says it will have to stop serving hundreds of primary care patients by the end of October. The organization claims abortions are a relatively small percentage of its overall services, which include cervical cancer screenings, contraception, and primary care to low-income residents.
President Donald Trump’s policy and tax bill, known as the “ big beautiful bill,” blocked Medicaid money from flowing to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider. The parameters in the bill also stopped funding from reaching Maine Family Planning, and it is the only other organization that has come forward publicly to say its funding is at risk.
Maine Family Planning says Medicaid dollars are not used for its abortion services, and it’s unfair to cut off funding for the clinics “solely because Congress wanted to defund Planned Parenthood,” an attorney for the organization told the judge earlier this month.
However, Judge Lance Walker said in his ruling Monday that the payments will not resume during the ongoing lawsuit by the provider seeking to restore the funds. He wrote that Congress can “withhold federal funds and otherwise disassociate from conduct that is not enshrined” as a constitutional right.
Walker, a 2018 Trump appointee, also wrote that it would be “a special kind of judicial hubris” to undermine the big bill, which he described as the end result of democratic processes.
While advocates of cutting Medicaid for abortion providers focused on Planned Parenthood, the bill did not mention it by name. Instead, it cut off reimbursements for organizations that are primarily engaged in family planning services — which generally include items such as contraception, abortion, and pregnancy tests — and received more than $800,000 from Medicaid in 2023.
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