A federal appeals court again overturned a lower court’s ruling halting a provision of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that prevents Medicaid reimbursements to abortion providers, marking the second case in which U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani has been overruled on the same matter.
The three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit found that the Trump administration sufficiently showed it was likely to prevail on its arguments that the provision of the bill was lawful and not ambiguous. Tuesday’s ruling came in a case brought by a group of Democrat-led states, which argued the federal government failed to give clear notice of the new provision to states that participate in the joint federal-state Medicaid program.
“We conclude that the Federal Defendants have made a strong showing that they are likely to succeed in demonstrating that this ground also likely does not support the Preliminary Injunction,” the panel of judges appointed by former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden said in its Tuesday ruling.
The panel temporarily halted Talwani’s Dec. 2 ruling after a different panel on the appeals court issued a temporary pause to Talwani’s ruling in a case brought by Planned Parenthood challenging the legality of the same provision on different grounds.
In both cases, the appeals court panels later issued firm rulings siding with the Trump administration and overturning Talwani’s rulings, which both had attempted to prevent the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s defunding of abortion providers.
