Judge Blocks Texas Cutting Medicaid to Planned Parenthood

A federal judge has blocked Texas from stripping Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer Medicaid funding.

U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks of Austin says there is no “evidence” of Planned Parenthood’s wrongdoing in videos alleging the abortion chain harvests the body parts of aborted babies and sells them for a profit, reports the Associated Press.

“A secretly recorded video, fake names, a grand jury indictment, congressional investigations — these are the building blocks of a best-selling novel rather than a case concerning the interplay of federal and state authority through the Medicaid program,” Sparks wrote in his decision. “Yet, rather than a villain plotting to take over the world, the subject of this case is the State of Texas’s efforts to expel a group of health care providers from a social health care program for families and individuals with limited resources.”

More than a dozen states have attempted to eliminate Planned Parenthood’s funding in the wake of the release of videos in 2015 that alleged the abortion chain harvests the body parts of babies aborted in its clinics and sells them for a profit. These states have redirected taxpayer funding to other healthcare centers that have met the federal government’s criteria.

Federally qualified health care centers (FQHCs) provide more comprehensive services than Planned Parenthood to low-income families. Nationally, there are 13,000 FQHCs – a figure that outnumbers Planned Parenthood facilities by 20 to 1.

Despite the overwhelming number of FQHCs, however, the Obama administration, an avid supporter of the nation’s largest abortion business, said that by redirecting funding away from Planned Parenthood, states “have interfered with” low-income individuals’ ability to access federal assistance quickly.

Last week, the House approved a resolution to overturn a last minute Obama Administration rule forcing states to provide Title X family planning grants to Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers. The Senate must now approve the resolution before it heads to the desk of President Donald Trump.

The rule was released one day after the Senate Judiciary Committee referred Planned Parenthood and several biomedical procurement companies with which it partners, to both the FBI and the Justice Department for investigation and possible criminal prosecution.

Additionally, the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives had just referred Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast for possible criminal prosecution by the Texas Attorney General.

In one of his first acts as president, Trump signed an executive order reinstating and expanding the “Mexico City Policy,” which bars non-governmental organizations that receive U.S. funds – including International Planned Parenthood – from providing or promoting abortions, as a method of family planning, overseas.

Trump’s update to the policy directs the Secretary of State to expand the policy across all global health assistance funding, prohibiting U.S. taxpayer dollars from supporting any organizations – such as the United Nations Population Fund–that promote or participate in the management of a coercive abortion program

Though Planned Parenthood has denied any wrongdoing in its sale of body parts, the abortion business also released a statement in October of 2015, announcing it will no longer accept payments for aborted fetal tissue.

The organization and its left wing political and media supporters continue to insist the videos, produced by the Center for Medical Progress, were “deceptively edited.”

However, a Democrat opposition research firm named Fusion – hired by Planned Parenthood itself to review the videos – said while their analysts observed the videos had been edited, “the analysis did not reveal widespread evidence of substantive video manipulation.”

Additionally, Fusion noted, “[A]nalysts found no evidence that CMP inserted dialogue not spoken by Planned Parenthood staff.”

An analysis by Coalfire, a third-party forensics company hired by Alliance Defending Freedom, found that the videos were “not manipulated” and that they are “authentic.”

As Breitbart Texas reported, Sparks initially delayed his decision in January until the Court could review the “mountain of evidence” and “extensive pleadings” in the case.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said the state will appeal the ruling.

“No taxpayer in Texas should have to subsidize this repugnant and illegal conduct,” he said in a statement. “We should never lose sight of the fact that, as long as abortion is legal in the United States, the potential for these types of horrors will continue.”