A federal judge in Baton Rouge today announced he will decide by Monday whether to block Gov. Bobby Jindal’s attempt to cut off state Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood’s Louisiana clinics.
As The Associated Press reports, Jindal began the defunding effort after secretly recorded videos were released by an anti-abortion group purportedly showing Planned Parenthood illegally selling fetal tissue for profit. The videos led to similar defunding efforts by Planned Parenthood opponents in other states and in Congress.
Planned Parenthood denies the allegation and says the videos are misleading. An attorney for the Planned Parenthood affiliate with clinics in Louisiana, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, says the political enmity stirred up against the organization by the videos is no reason to cut off its Medicaid funding, which goes for non-abortion services including cancer screenings, gynecology exams and other health services.
Without intervention from U.S. District Judge John deGravelles, the funding is expected to end early next week. At a hearing this morning, Planned Parenthood asked deGravelles for a temporary restraining order that would continue funding beyond a Monday cutoff date while the case remains pending.
Arguing for the state, attorney Jimmy Faircloth says Planned Parenthood’s request is premature because the organization should first go through a state administrative appeal process. Funding would continue during the required review, he says.
“There is absolutely no harm to them at all,” Faircloth says.
Carrie Flaxman, arguing for Planned Parenthood and some of its patients, says there is no legal requirement that the organization exhaust the state appeal process before going to federal court. She says patients affected by the fund cutoff have no such administrative appeal available.
Today’s hearing was conducted by telephone conference call because deGravelles was out of town. It was aired in an open courtroom at the federal courthouse in Baton Rouge.
