Despite federal law, Texas says Planned Parenthood will get no more Medicaid funding

After a year of delays, Texas says it will officially end Medicaid funding for the state’s 34 Planned Parenthood centers in 30 days, unless litigation prevents the move. The decision conflicts with federal law, as President Obama noted in April, and federal courts in other states have ruled that Medicaid funds cannot be withheld from the organization.

A legal challenge to the cut-off that has lain dormant for the past year in a federal court in Austin will come alive now that the state’s final decision in the matter has been made.

After a years-long battle, Texas officials first gave a notice of intent in October 2015 that it was going to kick Planned Parenthood out of the Medicaid program in 30 days. But the final notice was not delivered until now. 

U.S. law has for 40 years barred federal money from being spent on abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the woman’s life. But forced-birthers have argued this prohibition doesn’t go far enough and that no taxpayer money should be given organizations that provide other services if they also provide abortions. In the past year in Texas, Planned Parenthood has provided birth control, cancer screenings, and well woman services to some 11,000 low-income women.

In the final notice to Planned Parenthood, Texas Health and Human Services Inspector General Stuart Bowen took note that secret videos purporting to show the organization’s illegal activity related to procurement of fetal tissues were part of the decision:

Bowen claimed in the letter that the videos revealed Planned Parenthood has a history of "deviating from accepted standards" to procure tissue samples for researchers and a "willingness to charge more than the costs incurred for procuring fetal tissue," among other violations.

“Your misconduct is directly related to whether you are qualified to provide medical services in a professionally competent, safe, legal and ethical manner,” Bowen wrote in the letter. “Your actions violate generally accepted medical standards, as reflected in state and federal law, and are Medicaid program violations that justify termination.”

This is nonsense. Thirteen states have investigated and found no evidence to back up the purported claims of wrongdoing in the videos. In fact, soon after they were revealed to the public, the videos were shown to have been heavily edited to give the appearance that Planned Parenthood profited from the sale of fetal tissue derived from abortions, which is against the law. Christopher Mele reports: