A federal judge told Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley’s administration Tuesday that the state needs to explain to Planned Parenthood why it is terminating its Medicaid contract with the abortion provider’s two Alabama facilities.
“To use an old phrase, Where’s the beef? Where’s the cause?” U.S. District Judge Myron Thomson said, according to the Star Tribune.
While Thomson did not immediately rule on a preliminary injunction to restore the Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood Southeast, he did suggest the state explain why it was terminating its contract.
Last month, Bentley said he was terminating the Medicaid funds in the wake of the Center for Medical Progress videos exposing the abortion business’ practice of harvesting the body parts of aborted babies for sale on the open market.
Planned Parenthood attorney Melissa Cohen, however, argued that because the premise of the videos was “patently false,” Bentley had no legal or quality of care reason to terminate the Medicaid contract.
“It misrepresents practices in unrelated Planned Parenthood affiliates in other states and does not relate in any way to Planned Parenthood Southeast,” Cohen said.
In a statement on Tuesday, Bentley said, “I terminated the contract because of the deplorable practices that have been exposed in the Planned Parenthood organization.”
John C. Neiman, an attorney who represents Alabama, wrote, “Recent reports suggest that Planned Parenthood practices in this regard are inconsistent with accepted standards.”
The ACLU filed the lawsuit against Alabama on behalf of Planned Parenthood. The abortion giant also filed lawsuits against Louisiana and Arkansas for cancellation of Medicaid contracts.
Last week, as Associated Press reported, U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker granted Planned Parenthood of the Heartland’s (PPH) request to block the state from denying Medicaid funds to the organization.
“At this stage of the proceedings, the court finds that the threat of irreparable harm to PPH and Jane Does, and the public interest, outweighs the immediate interests and potential injuries to (the state),” Baker wrote, adding that her order would expire nevertheless within 14 days.
“Unfortunately, we find ourselves in court once again with state officials who are hell-bent on ending a woman’s ability to make her own deeply personal and private healthcare decisions,” said Planned Parenthood Southeast President Staci Fox, according to the Washington Examiner. “Only this time, instead of going after safe and legal abortion as he has each of the past four years, now Governor Bentley is trying to dictate where a woman can go for contraception and other preventive care if she’s enrolled in Medicaid.”
Though Planned Parenthood representatives continue the narrative that they provide “safe and legal abortion,” the promotion remains highly questionable — even as recently as last month — when the Mobile Planned Parenthood clinic was found to have provided two abortions – within four months — to a 14 year-old girl while the facility failed to report she was quite possibly the victim of sexual abuse.
A report from the Alabama Department of Health, cited at al.com, states the Planned Parenthood clinic is required by law to report possible abuse and neglect, but failed to do so in the case of this 14-year-old girl in April of 2014 who, at that time, already had two children.
“There was no documentation in the medical record of the facility reporting suspected abuse to the proper authorities as required by Ala. Code Reporting of Child Abuse or neglect,” the report states.
“At Planned Parenthood we take seriously our responsibility to ensure her safety, and all patients’ safety. As we explained to the state, our clinicians thoroughly screened this patient and her mother for abuse and neglect. No abuse was discovered,” Planned Parenthood wrote in a statement.
“We are committed to excellence and have extremely high standards for the cleanliness of all our health centers because we believe your health care access and your health care quality shouldn’t depend on where you live, who you are, or how much money you make,” Planned Parenthood continued. “We have taken swift action in Mobile to ensure all patients have a safe, positive experience while in our care.”
Similar experiences have been cited at other Planned Parenthood facilities.
In April of 2013, for example, in the midst of the trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell – who was ultimately convicted of murdering infants born alive during abortion procedures – Breitbart News reported that Planned Parenthood Southeast Pennsylvania president and CEO Dayle Steinberg, speaking at a fundraiser, admitted that she knew what was transpiring at Gosnell’s “house of horrors,” but neither she nor her organization reported it to state health officials or others who could have stepped in.
Instead, Steinberg said Planned Parenthood left it up to women, traumatized by the horrors of Gosnell’s clinic, to report the abortionist.
The Obama administration – a close ally of Planned Parenthood – has threatened states attempting to defund the nation’s largest provider of abortions with potential violation of federal law and, ultimately, the complete cut-off of Medicaid funds to those states.
In a guidance document from Health and Human Services in 2011, the Obama administration said states are not allowed to exclude providers from Medicaid solely on the basis of the types of services they offer.
The guidance, however, also says that states can exclude providers from Medicaid funding if their engagement in certain criminal acts is proven, a provision that many believe is the case with the videos of Planned Parenthood’s top medical personnel discussing the sale of aborted baby organs and body parts.