How Planned Parenthood Secured A 14 Day Restraining Order Forcing Treasury To Keep Making Payments Congress Ended.

How is it that the Department of Justice and Trump Administration were entirely excluded from the process leading to that result?

This one is a legal geek “lawsplainer” involving some of the substantive and procedural aspects of yesterday’s filing of a Complaint by Planned Parenthood, and the granting of a Temporary Restraining Order by a federal judge in Massachusetts against a new statute passed by Congress — all without a moment’s input or objection allowed from DOJ.

In addition to fleshing out the timeline of events, I also have some observations on various issues related to this particular piece of lawfare that I’ve come across on social media. If I borrow from comments made by others without attribution, I apologize in advance. So much has been written already it would be impossible in the time available to me to go back and find the original source for some of these issues that have now lodged themselves in my brain.

First up is the sequence of events leading to the TRO. Next I’ll go over some of the claims raised by the Complaint. Finally I’ll address some of the issues involving the parties who are the plaintiffs.

The “One Big Beautiful Bill” was passed by Congress on July 3, 2025, and signed into law by Pres. Trump on July 4. This is not an “Executive Order.” This is a statute passed by Congress after months of debate between the two chambers, as well as debates between the members of the two parties.

Planned Parenthood has been very public with its plans to file suit once the bill was signed into law. The target of their effort is Sec. 71113 which includes definitional language that works to disqualify any entity meeting the definition from receiving Medicaid reimbursement for its services. Planned Parenthood meets the definition and therefore Planned Parenthood is now disqualified from receiving compensation for its services for lower income patients who qualify for Medicaid coverage. The complaint alleges that roughly 50% of all Planned Parenthood patients are covered by Medicaid.

So on Monday, July 7, 2025, at 11:12 am, Planned Parenthood filed a civil Complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The Complaint was uploaded to a newly created public docket at 11:34 am.

At 11:38 a.m., after getting notice that the Complaint had been accepted and uploaded to the PACER docketing system, Planned Parenthood filed a Motion for Temporary Restraining Order and related supporting documents.