House Speaker Mike Johnson Makes Last-Ditch Effort to Defund Planned Parenthood

House Speaker Mike Johnson is planning a rare fourth reconciliation package to defund Planned Parenthood, according to sources, but it is unclear if he can succeed. The 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act defunded Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, for one year, but that provision expired on July 4, 2026. Pro-life members pushed […]
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House Speaker Mike Johnson is planning a rare fourth reconciliation package to defund Planned Parenthood, according to sources, but it is unclear if he can succeed.

The 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act defunded Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, for one year, but that provision expired on July 4, 2026. Pro-life members pushed for extensions of the defunding provision in both reconciliation 2.0 and 3.0 bills, but both efforts were unsuccessful. The Senate’s process of reconciliation, used for certain budget-related items, bypasses the filibuster, requiring only a simple majority vote for passage instead of the usual 60 votes.

The White House-approved reconciliation 3.0 package includes policy priorities such as Iran war spending and voter ID legislation, but it does not address the millions in funding to Planned Parenthood.

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Certain members of Congress have held discussions with the Trump administration stressing the importance of defunding Planned Parenthood, a senior House aide told the Daily Signal. Yet most conservative members have agreed to vote for a reconciliation 3.0 package that doesn’t involve abortion funding.

Johnson has told pro-life groups and members to wait for a fourth reconciliation bill to defund Planned Parenthood, a prospect one pro-life operative described as a “pipe dream.” But Majority Leader Steve Scalise agreed that reconciliation 4.0 can “do the things that are left out of this one [reconciliation 3.0],” and Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington said there is a legitimate prospect for a fourth bill that defunds Planned Parenthood.

Rep. Mark Harris, R-N.C., a staunch pro-lifer, agrees with that approach, telling the Daily Signal that “there comes a time that you do have to acknowledge and recognize political realities.”

“[Reconciliation 3.0] has to be kept that narrow,” he said, “and anything beyond that, including this, would create a legislative crisis over there [in the Senate], and would open up so many other doors.”

However, a budget expert told the Daily Signal there is no way that a reconciliation 4.0 can be enacted this Congress.

Reconciliation 3.0 uses up the one reconciliation bill Congress is allowed to have for the budget year, the expert said. Congress only gets the opportunity to write one filibuster-proof bill for each budget resolution.

Congress has never passed a second reconciliation bill for the same budget, so to accomplish that, the parliamentarian, who oversees Senate rules and procedures, would likely have to be fired, the expert said.

Johnson, R-La., told reporters Tuesday that reconciliation 3.0 is the “best shot at accomplishing two key objectives of the people of this country.”

“No. 1: secure American elections by passing the SAVE America Act into law, as much of that as possible, that’s the objective,” he said. “No. 2: protect and strengthen our homeland.”

The SAVE America Act would require voter ID and proof of citizenship to vote in U.S. elections and would end mail-in ballots. President Donald Trump has endorsed its passage through reconciliation.

One pro-life operative told the Daily Signal her organization doesn’t want to derail the passage of the SAVE America Act, so it is willing to accept a bill excluding an abortion funding ban in exchange for future pro-life provisions.

Students for Life Action gave every single member of Congress an “F” for failing to renew the Planned Parenthood defund by July 4, but it is offering to reverse that grade for any member who demands that Trump’s Small Business Administration “debars” Planned Parenthood, which would block it from receiving any form of federal funding.

Harris said he trusts that Johnson understands how important it is to defund Planned Parenthood, which said its affiliates performed more than 434,000 abortions in the 2023-2024 reporting year.

“Speaker Johnson has assured me that he understands what we’re in, and that he is working diligently and creatively to find a way to get Planned Parenthood unfunded,” Harris told the Daily Signal.

While Harris thinks more involvement from the Trump administration could help move the needle, he still believes Trump is the most pro-life president in history.

Trump has not specified whether Congress should find a way to extend the defunding of Planned Parenthood, telling the Daily Signal in May, “To put it mildly, it’s been a very thorny issue.”

“There’s no question that when the president speaks on things, that action is taken,” Harris said, “but I also point out that I think the president understands that really he has done more for the pro-life movement than we’ve seen in any other administration.”

The White House did not respond to the Daily Signal’s request for comment.

Harris would still like to see the administration act to restore the in-person dispensing requirement on the abortion drug, mifepristone.

“I’m going to continue to be pushing the conference,” he said. “I’m going to continue to be pushing the administration on these issues.”

LifeNews Note: Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell writes for Daily Signal, where this article originally appeared.