Planned Parenthood received several wins from the judiciary this week, including one in Indiana where a judge ruled the state’s law banning abortions for unborn children with disabilities is unconstitutional and another in Ohio where an injunction against a law redirecting taxpayer funds away from abortion vendors was upheld.
In Indiana, 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge William J. Bauer declared provisions of the Indiana bill, signed into law in 2016 by now-Vice President Mike Pence, to be “unconstitutional.”
The law also banned abortions due to the sex or race of the child.
“The non-discrimination provisions clearly violate well-established Supreme Court precedent holding that a woman may terminate her pregnancy prior to viability, and that the State may not prohibit a woman from exercising that right for any reason,” Bauer wrote for the three-judge panel that ruled on the case. The decision upheld a ruling from a federal district court last year that struck down these provisions of the law.
“This ruling is a victory for women and another repudiation of attempts by Indiana politicians to restrict — and even ban — access to abortion care,” Jane Henegar, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana – which represented Planned Parenthood – said. “Deeply personal decisions about abortion should be made by women in consultation with their doctors — not by politicians or government bureaucrats.”
Catherine Glenn Foster, however, President of Americans United for Life (AUL), said Bauer’s ruling asserts “unborn children diagnosed with disabilities in the womb cannot be protected from fatal discrimination.”
“Indiana and now-Vice President Mike Pence were pioneers in their defense of disabled children, and AUL will continue to fight for the day when all humans are welcomed in life and protected in law,” she added.
In Ohio, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati upheld a lower court’s injunction against a law that would have kept more than $1.4 million in primarily federal funds from going to 28 Planned Parenthood clinics in the state. As National Review observes, the court did not accept Ohio’s argument that states have the right to determine how to use their federal funds and that no one has a “right” to them.
If the Ohio Attorney General’s office decides to appeal the ruling, the case could end up before the Supreme Court.
President of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List Marjorie Dannenfelser said the 6thCircuit’s ruling is “erroneous” and “goes against the will of the citizens of Ohio.”
“They and their lawmakers have every right to decide not to prop up abortion businesses with their tax dollars,” she said in a statement, observing that “57 percent of Ohio voters oppose sending tax dollars to Planned Parenthood instead of comprehensive alternatives that offer preventative and primary care and outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities 20 to 1 nationwide.”
Mike Gonidakis, President of Ohio Right to Life, also denounced the ruling:
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals made the wrong decision when it comes to defunding Planned Parenthood in Ohio. The Constitution does not give private corporations the right to taxpayer dollars. Planned Parenthood receives countless tax dollars a year from hardworking Ohioans, which frees up their budget to fund their real priorities: abortion on demand. We trust that pro-life Attorney General Mike DeWine will defend this law that protects the conscience rights of Ohio taxpayers at the Supreme Court, and that activist judges won’t get the final say in this matter.
In yet another case, a federal judge in Washington, DC, ruled the Trump administration’s cuts to the Obama Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program are illegal. As the Hill reports, the Department of Health and Human Services informed 81 groups that their five-year grants to provide sex education in schools would end in 2018 – two years short of their original end date of 2020.
In August, Trump HHS official Valerie Huber told Breitbart News there is no evidence the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program has been responsible for a drop in teen birth rates.
“The research for this program is more than disappointing,” Huber said. “More than 70 percent of the program showed no impact or negative impact – which means that the communities that implemented these programs were promised that, if you implement these evidence-based programs, you can expect to achieve similar positive results in your community.”
In 2014, Planned Parenthood announced that 15 of its affiliates across the country were awarded grants of some $19 million and were “recognized as leaders in teen pregnancy prevention” when they were selected by HHS “to receive new grant funding as part of President Obama’s Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative.”
Now, parents in at least 13 cities across America are turning against the abortion provider’s presence in public schools because the curriculum is graphic and steeped in gender ideology influenced by LGBT rights groups. On Monday, many of these parents will pull their children out of school in a protest called “Sex Ed Sit Out.”
Penny Nance, President of Concerned Women for America, recently observed in a statement that, during the tenure of outgoing Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, the organization “has been exposed for refusing to report statutory rape and abuse, for aiding sex traffickers, for taking money to abort black babies, and for illegally profiting off of the body parts they have aborted.”
Time and again, Americans have seen the contempt of progressive groups for laws passed by representatives of “the people” that do not conform to their agenda. Since Planned Parenthood has grown increasingly unpopular with average Americans represented by their state lawmakers, the organization is desperate to ensure the Trump administration’s picks for federal courts are blocked:
American Life League notes that Planned Parenthood “continually loses in public votes and in many state legislatures” but “turns to the courts to force its way on the American people.”
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