(Oregon Right to Life) — Oregon’s pro-abortion Attorney General Dan Rayfield this week added Oregon to a multistate lawsuit attempting to block the federal defunding of Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion business. Oregon Right to Life’s executive director blasted the move, arguing Oregon’s leaders are “taking the wrong side on this deeply important human rights issue.”
Oregon joined 22 states and Washington D.C. on Tuesday in a lawsuit against the Trump Administration over a provision in the recent “One Big Beautiful Bill” budget reconciliation measure that paused federal taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood for one year. Planned Parenthood has already filed its own lawsuit against the Trump administration, and the federal defunding is currently paused.
“Planned Parenthood is where thousands of Oregonians go for cancer screenings, contraception, and basic medical care,” Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield – a longtime backer of Planned Parenthood and unlimited abortion access – said in a statement announcing Oregon’s inclusion in the lawsuit. “Pulling Medicaid funding doesn’t make that need disappear, it just makes it harder for people to stay healthy.”
The lawsuit argues that defunding Planned Parenthood would jeopardize low-income women who receive necessary medical care from the abortion business’s facilities. However, abortion is never medically necessary and Planned Parenthood facilities provide a very small percentage of non-abortion-related medical services, all of which are available to Oregonians (with or without insurance) at other clinics throughout the state. The data shows that Planned Parenthood is primarily an abortion business, performing about 40% of abortions nationwide in the 2022-2023 fiscal year.
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In a statement, Oregon Right to Life Executive Director Lois Anderson said it’s “frustrating to see our state’s leaders once again repeating the abortion industry’s talking points, and worse, taking the wrong side on this deeply important human rights issue.”
“Dan Rayfield, Governor Tina Kotek, and their allies at Planned Parenthood are seeking to override the will of the people and keep taking money out of taxpayers’ pockets to fund hundreds of thousands of abortions every year across the country,” Anderson said. “Oregon Right to Life vehemently opposes Oregon’s inclusion in this badly considered lawsuit.”
In the statement, Anderson added that Oregon Right to Life looks “forward to a strong ruling that upholds the right of the American people, through their elected representatives, to defund Planned Parenthood in the interest of moms, families, and babies nationwide.”
The decision by Attorney General Rayfield to sue the Trump administration over the defunding of Planned Parenthood comes as the latest in a series of recent moves by Oregon’s pro-abortion leadership to promote abortion and block pro-life efforts.
Last year, shortly after the re-election of Donald Trump to the White House, Governor Tina Kotek announced plans to increase the state’s stockpile of the dangerous abortion pill mifepristone in anticipation of potential federal moves to limit abortion. In March, she signed a proclamation to honor abortion providers. And during this year’s session, Oregon’s legislature (in which pro-life lawmakers comprise the superminority) approved a budget provision allocating $10 million to Planned Parenthood to offset the impact of the federal defunding.
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It remains to be seen whether Planned Parenthood and the states involved in the parallel lawsuit will find success in their legal actions against the Trump administration.
As Oregon Right to Life has previously reported, pro-life advocates anticipate that the ultimate defunding of Planned Parenthood by the federal government would fundamentally benefit women, families, and babies nationwide.
Defunding could trigger the shuttering of almost 200 abortion facilities across the country, most of them in states where abortion is currently legal, according to Planned Parenthood Action Fund. Without a prevalence of Planned Parenthood facilities offering abortions, more women experiencing challenging pregnancies would be likely to reach out for other options, including pro-life pregnancy resource centers and maternity homes that provide life-affirming resources.
Meanwhile, the move to defund the abortion giant comes as brick-and-mortar Planned Parenthood facilities have already been closing their doors across the country in increasing numbers, and reports indicate the standard of care at many facilities is sub-par. Earlier this year, The New York Times published an article shining a spotlight on “scores of allegations reviewed by The Times that accuse Planned Parenthood of poor care.”
Despite the reports of poor care, Planned Parenthood has received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal dollars. According to its official 2023–2024 report, Planned Parenthood brought in more than $2 billion in revenue during the year, $792.2 million (39%) of which came from the federal government. During the same period, the abortion giant reported performing a record 402,230 abortions. A 2025 Knights of Columbus-Marist poll found that 57% of respondents across political divides disagreed with using taxpayer dollars to finance abortion.
Oregon Right to Life will continue to monitor and report on the ongoing lawsuits by Oregon, Planned Parenthood, and others in response to the federal defunding of Planned Parenthood.
