WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — Pro-lifers across America are reeling over the Republican-controlled Congress’s failure to keep Planned Parenthood defunded, and now Students for Life has taken the dramatic step of notifying every member of Congress they have received a failing pro-life grade as a result.

Last July, President Donald Trump signed into law his controversial “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (BBB), a wide-ranging policy package that included a one-year ban on federal tax dollars going through Medicaid to entities that commit abortions for reasons other than rape, incest, or supposed threats to the mother’s life. It denied millions to Planned Parenthood, but pro-lifers warned from the start that it was only a temporary solution and urged Congress to enact a more permanent measure ahead of the provision’s July 4, 2026, expiration date.

Over the following months, GOP leaders gave mixed signals on the matter, with House Speaker Mike Johnson declaring in January he was “not going to allow” taxpayer funding for abortion, while the White House did not rule out compromise on the issue amid contentious wrangling to get funding for the president’s legislative priorities.

This past weekend, the deadline came and went without any last-minute resolution, allowing the nation’s largest abortion chain to resume billing for Medicaid reimbursements. Under the Hyde amendment, those reimbursements cannot go directly to most abortions, but by giving Planned Parenthood millions to cover non-abortion expenses, it frees up an equivalent amount from other sources to be put toward abortions.

“The fact that congressional leaders decided not to defund them as part of the last reconciliation bill is just beyond me,” lamented Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO). “That was really taking the pro-life movement and pro-life voters for granted, because you’re depending on those voters to turn out and vote for you in November.”

On July 5, Students for Life Action announced it was registering its displeasure by giving every member of Congress an “F” grade, making good on a threat the organization issued a month beforehand.

“The ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ signing last year on the Fourth of July started a countdown clock leading to yesterday’s financial tragedy,” said Students for Life president Kristan Hawkins. “Because Congress did not act to keep the cuts in place, Planned Parenthood & Big Abortion received a gift from federal taxpayers on America’s 250th birthday – access to hundreds of millions in scarce Medicaid dollars. We are calling on Congress to get busy to replace the ‘F’ they got yesterday on the Pro-Life Generation Report Card by earning extra credit with action before Congress goes out of session. The bottom line, pro-life voters want to see healthcare money invested with those who intend for their patients to survive with their lives and fertility intact.”

Until this expiration, cutting off federal funds to the abortion industry was the issue on which Trump’s second term most closely resembled the pro-life record of his first. Within weeks of returning to office in 2025, he began enforcing the Hyde amendment, reinstated the Mexico City Policy that forbids non-governmental organizations from using taxpayer dollars for most abortions abroad, and cut millions in pro-abortion subsidies by freezing U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) spending.

It comes amid a contentious period for the pro-life movement’s relationship with the Republican Party. In his first term Trump, appointed three of the five Supreme Court justices to overturn Roe v. Wade, but the ensuing argument over the political fallout from direct abortion bans led him to come out against federal pro-life laws in his 2024 campaign and even to embrace the Biden administration’s gutting of abortion pill regulations. 

The Trump administration is currently reviewing abortion pill data, offering hope for a potential reversal of that stance, but the results will not be ready until after this fall’s midterm elections. The administration has been accused of intentionally foot-dragging to keep the issue from influencing the midterms, and a similar fear may explain inaction on the abortion industry’s federal funding.

That calculation could be dangerously shortsighted, however. The Family Research Council recently commissioned a Cygnal poll finding that while most GOP voters are not aware that abortions have increased since the 2022 Dobbs ruling that overturned Roe, those who are feel less likely to turn out to vote this November.