Planned Parenthood Sues Texas Over Plans To Cut Medicaid Funding

The state announced its intent to end funding in October in response to the alleged “acts of misconduct” brought to light through a series of controversial undercover videos by anti-abortion advocates.

Unless the federal court intervenes, the lawsuit said, Texas will remove Planned Parenthood as a Medicaid provider as early as December 8 over “false” accusations of improper activity, affecting more than 13,500 Texas patients who “will lose their provider of choice, will find their family planning services interrupted, and in many cases will be left with reduced access to care”.

Planned Parenthood, along with other concerned and relevant stakeholders like women’s groups and health providers, has filed a lawsuit in Austin’s federal court after the state has threatened to reduce the funding for the group through Medicare. Both are against federal law.

Planned Parenthood receives the biggest chunk of its taxpayer dollars from providing basic health services, like birth control consultations and STD testing, to low-income people enrolled in Medicaid. The investigation came after videos were released, starting in mid-July, by anti-abortion activists who posed as representatives of a biomedical firm.

Federal officials with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had previously contacted Texas officials to tell them that defunding Planned Parenthood “may be in conflict with federal law”, the Texas Tribune reported.

Now that the attorney general has weighed in, lawmakers should move beyond this fetal-tissue controversy and ensure women’s health care is protected and funded next session.

Planned Parenthood affiliates in Texas have filed a lawsuit against the state of Texas.

Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards first revealed plans for the suit through a Tweet.

This latest attention to the Planned Parenthood videos and Lockhart’s honest and strong willingness to defend speech for the pro-life group is refreshing after other recent episodes of the show.

The privileges are significant because they’d been granted to a Planned Parenthood doctor and played a role in the Columbia clinic obtaining a license to begin offering abortions in August. “Taken together, these measures threaten to devastate access to critical health care and education across vast regions of the country-all in the name of politics”, Richards said in Monday’s statement. They also requested documents detailing fetal tissue donation practices.

Amy Whalen writes that “Planned Parenthood does not sell fetal tissue” (“Vote to defund Planned Parenthood based on bad info” November 17).