Roger Marshall on Abortion and Reproductive Health: The Planned Parenthood Medicaid Cutoff, His Dobbs Brief and Abortion-Pill Letter, and Abortion Care for Veterans

On July 1, 2025, Kansas Senator Roger Marshall cast one of the 50 votes that passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which barred federal Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood for a year, after voting against removing that provision the day before. In that year Planned Parenthood reported Medicaid visits dropping by 25% or over 250,000 visits nationwide and nearly 30 health centers closed. On March 25, 2026, Marshall voted against taking up a resolution to overturn the Veterans Affairs rule that ended abortion care and counseling for veterans, including after rape or incest.

In 2021 Marshall signed a brief by members of Congress asking the Supreme Court to reconsider Roe v. Wade, which the Court overruled in 2022; with bans in neighboring states, Kansas clinics and hospitals provided 15,048 abortions to out-of-state residents in 2024. In October 2025 he signed a letter with 50 other Republican senators asking the FDA to restrict the abortion pill mifepristone, a step 65% of Americans oppose in the form of a nationwide ban, KFF found. As a House member in 2017 he voted for a law that let states cut Planned Parenthood out of federal family planning grants.

Marshall has called the Planned Parenthood cutoff one of "the largest pro-life wins since the Dobbs decision," and in 2022 he campaigned for the Value Them Both amendment to the Kansas Constitution, which Kansas voters rejected.

Roger Marshall's Votes, Confirmations, Brief and Letter on Abortion and Reproductive Health

• Marshall Cast One of the 50 Votes for the Law That Cut Off Planned Parenthood's Medicaid Payments for a Year. On July 1, 2025, Roger Marshall voted yes on H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which passed 50-50 with the Vice President's vote, so it would have failed without his vote. Section 71113 barred federal Medicaid payments to large nonprofit family planning providers that also offer abortions for "the 1-year period beginning on the date of the enactment," July 4, 2025. Medicaid patients could no longer use their coverage at those clinics for birth control, STI tests or cancer screening. Planned Parenthood said "Nearly 30 health centers, which served roughly 41,000 birth control patients, have been forced to close" in that year. The ban expired in July 2026, and Medicaid billing was allowed to resume, but closed clinics did not all return; a Florida clinic in Lakeland isn’t expected to reopen (AP). The same law's Medicaid work requirements, starting in 2027, threaten to eliminate Medicaid coverage for 2.1 million women aged 19-49, the Guttmacher Institute estimates.
• Marshall Voted Against Removing the Planned Parenthood Cutoff in June 2025. On June 30, 2025, Marshall voted no on Senator Patty Murray's motion to waive the Budget Act for Amendment 2771, which would have struck the Planned Parenthood provision from the bill. The motion failed 49-51. Had it passed, Medicaid patients would have kept their coverage at the clinics where, according to Planned Parenthood, two-thirds (66%) of health center closures occurred in rural areas or places short of doctors in the following year.
• Marshall Voted to Keep the Rule Ending Abortion Care for Veterans in March 2026. On March 25, 2026, Marshall voted no on taking up S.J.Res. 103, a resolution to overturn the Department of Veterans Affairs rule on reproductive health services. The motion to proceed failed 48-50, so the resolution never reached a vote. The rule, effective January 30, 2026, was issued "to reinstate the exclusions on abortions and abortion counseling from the medical benefits package," including for CHAMPVA family members. It ended a 2022 policy that allowed VA medical personnel to conduct abortions in cases of rape or incest, and the VA now "prohibits the procedure at VA medical facilities unless the life of the mother is endangered" (Military Times). Senator Mazie Hirono said the rule limits care for 460,000 women veterans of reproductive age.
• Marshall Voted to Confirm Doug Collins, Whose Department Wrote the Rule Ending Abortion Care for Veterans. On February 4, 2025, Marshall voted to confirm Doug Collins as Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Collins's department issued the final rule that took effect in January 2026, under which a veteran who becomes pregnant after rape or incest can no longer get an abortion, or counseling about one, through the VA.
• Marshall Voted to Confirm Mehmet Oz, Whose Agency Withdrew Federal Guidance on Emergency Abortion Care. On April 3, 2025, Marshall voted to confirm Mehmet Oz as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Two months later, Healio reported that CMS is rescinding a Biden administration-era policy on abortion care for women in medical emergencies, guidance that had told emergency room doctors that when an abortion is the treatment needed to stabilize a patient, the physician must provide that treatment. In Texas, a state with a ban, ProPublica found that blood transfusions during emergency room visits for first-trimester miscarriage shot up by 54%.
• Marshall Cast a Deciding Vote to Confirm Pete Hegseth, Whose Pentagon Stopped Paying for Troops to Travel for Abortion Care. On January 24, 2025, Marshall voted to confirm Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. The vote was 50-50 and the Vice President broke the tie, so Hegseth would not have been confirmed without Marshall's vote. Days later NBC News reported that the Pentagon has rescinded a Biden administration policy that reimbursed service members and dependents for travel to states where abortion is legal. The policy had covered troops and families who had to cross state lines because they were stationed in a state where abortion care was outlawed or unavailable.
• Marshall Voted to Confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Whose Department Withheld Family Planning Money for Most of 2025. On February 13, 2025, Marshall voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services. That spring his department withheld grant payments to 144 Planned Parenthood sites in 20 states under Title X, the federal family planning program for low-income patients. The money was released in December 2025, but Planned Parenthood says dozens of clinics that closed because of the withheld money are unlikely to reopen (Michigan Advance).
• Marshall Voted Against a Budget Pledge to Protect Medicaid Care for Mothers and Children in February 2025. On February 20, 2025, Marshall voted no on an amendment to the Senate budget resolution that would have set up a reserve fund for protecting access to maternal and pediatric health care. It was rejected 49 to 51. Medicaid covers 41% of all US births, the Guttmacher Institute reports, and the budget process that followed produced the 2025 law's Medicaid cuts.
• Marshall Signed a Letter Asking the FDA to Restrict the Abortion Pill in October 2025. In October 2025, Marshall was one of 51 Republican senators who signed a letter to Kennedy and FDA Commissioner Martin Makary, and the signer list includes Roger Marshall, M.D. of Kansas. The letter asked them to "Reinstate the in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone and all its generic versions" and to "Suspend the distribution of mifepristone and all generic versions as an 'imminent hazard.'" NOTUS reported that the requests would heavily restrict access to abortion pills nationwide. In a KFF poll in June 2026, Americans said they oppose laws that would ban mifepristone nationwide (65%). The FDA's re-evaluation of the drug's safety is now underway, KFF reported.
• Marshall Asked the Supreme Court to Reconsider Roe v. Wade in 2021. On July 29, 2021, Roger Marshall joined 227 other members of Congress on an amicus brief in the Dobbs case from Mississippi, listed as "Roger Marshall, M.D. (KS)," arguing that "ROE AND CASEY SHOULD BE RECONSIDERED." On June 24, 2022, the Court ruled that "The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled," and abortion bans, restrictions in nearby states followed. After Nebraska's 12-week ban, an Omaha woman who was 16 weeks pregnant traveled to Kansas to seek an abortion after contracting cytomegalovirus, the Flatwater Free Press reported.
• Marshall Voted in 2017 to Let States Cut Planned Parenthood Out of Family Planning Grants. On February 16, 2017, as a House member from Kansas, Roger Marshall voted yes on H.J.Res. 43, which overturned the federal rule on "compliance with title X requirements by project recipients in selecting subrecipients." It became law on April 13, 2017. UPI reported that the law allows states to block federal family planning funding for abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood, whose clinics serve low-income patients through Title X with birth control, cancer screening and STI testing.
• Marshall Called the Planned Parenthood Cutoff the Largest Anti-Abortion Win Since Dobbs. On June 24, 2025, Marshall's office said the reconciliation bill "will deliver the largest pro-life wins since the Dobbs decision" through its Medicaid ban on large abortion providers, and on Newsmax he said "this is going to defund Planned Parenthood." On March 31, 2026, he said, "we weren’t able to outlaw abortion, but we were able to defund Planned Parenthood for a year." Planned Parenthood said that in the year of the ban almost 25% fewer birth control pill packs were dispensed to its patients.
• Marshall Campaigned for the Kansas Abortion Amendment That Voters Rejected in 2022. In July 2022, Marshall said that "the Value Them Both amendment puts the decision making process back into the hands of state officials," backing the proposed amendment to the Kansas Constitution, the Hutch Post reported. On August 2, 2022, Kansas voters protected the right to get an abortion by voting “no” on a proposed amendment, WIBW reported, and Marshall said he felt sadness after the Value Them Both amendment was not adopted. The Kansas Secretary of State's official totals show 557,837 votes, or 59.16 percent, against the amendment.

What Roger Marshall's Record on Abortion Means for Patients in Kansas

• Patients from ban states. Kansas clinics and hospitals performed a record 19,811 abortions in 2024, and 15,048 abortions in Kansas were provided to out-of-state residents, led by patients from Texas, 6,736; Missouri, 3,760; Oklahoma, 3,141, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment reported. Those patients traveled because their own states' laws, possible after the Dobbs ruling Marshall urged, ended or limited abortion at home.
• Veterans in Kansas. Women veterans who get their care at VA medical centers in Kansas are covered by the VA rule Marshall voted to keep, which "prohibits the procedure at VA medical facilities unless the life of the mother is endangered."

Frequently Asked Questions About Roger Marshall on Abortion and reproductive health

Last updated: 2026-10-25

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