Judge temporarily preserves federal funds flowing to Planned Parenthood in Utah

Planned Parenthood Greater Texas spokeswoman Sarah Wheat asked the council to approve the resolution immediately without amendments, mentioning that Planned Parenthood was under eight state and federal investigations in Texas.

A federal judge said Wednesday the state has two weeks to respond to a motion for class-action status in a lawsuit challenging Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s decision to end Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood. Funding would continue during the required review, he said. Individuals should have the right to support health organizations, including Planned Parenthood. There is no timeline for when he will release his ruling, but a temporary restraining order will prevent the state from defunding Planned Parenthood until he does. Planned Parenthood said the recording was heavily edited.

Agenda Item 39, adding the support of Planned Parenthood funding to the city’s legislative agenda, was placed on the consent (or uncontested) agenda less than a week before the council meeting, not even going through a committee hearing process like most of the other agenda items. Outside of the courtroom Tomsic said not granting the injunction would irreparably harm the organization and the people of Utah who would lose access to services.

“Those services have nothing to do with abortion or abortion related services”, Tomsic argued. The group also claims it is being targeted for its advocacy for or association with abortion services. She used the line that “nobody can tell me what to do with my body”, entirely ignoring the body of the abortion victim.

Gary Herbert had ordered a stop to $275,000 in federal grant money in an August 14 directive, spurring the September 28 suit by the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah.

Tyler Green, the solicitor general for the Utah attorney general’s office, argued that contract laws allowed Herbert to cut funding due to the videos because it raised a question about whether the local branch was associating with a group that was breaking the law.

In court documents, they included an email from the deputy director of the state Department of Health asking department staff to come up with talking points explaining reasons why Utah shouldn’t block the funds.

A Missouri lawmaker wants to build a memorial wall for babies murdered in the womb, and plans to make Planned Parenthood pay for it. Nor did anyone mention the fact that Planned Parenthood is technically a private organization, whose public funding has taken up a significant amount of national debate and gridlocked the United States Congress.