An Arizona law that would have cut clinics that provide abortion services from the state’s Medicaid plan was struck down Thursday, signaling a win for Planned Parenthood.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said lawmakers in Arizona were wrong to tie Medicaid funds for family planning services to a requirement that clinics like Planned Parenthood stop performing abortions, according to the East Valley Tribune.
The American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood filed a complaint about the law in July, arguing it’s “wrong for the state to tell Arizonans who they can and cannot see for their health care.”
Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said this decision is in line with similar cases from around the country.
“All women, no matter where they live, should be able to get quality, affordable health care from the health care provider they know and trust,” Richards said in a statement, according to The Hill.
At what point is the War on Women going to just give it a rest? Abortion is a legal procedure. Those who don’t approve shouldn’t have one. End of story. However, some people want to drag this out to the point of absurdity.
The best way to end abortion is to stop unintended pregnancy. That is the goal of Planned Parenthood. (check out the name of the organization. ) Planned Parenthood, in particular, helps city women with reliable birth control and medical services that can cost hundreds of dollars if obtained privately. Why the continual attacks on Planned Parenthood? It ought to be supported.
It’s high time that those who want to pay fewer taxes, especially for food programs and Medicaid, understand that Planned Parenthood is saving them big bucks already. I don’t understand why the culture warriors just don’t grasp the connection. This isn’t rocket science.
It’s time for all the state legislatures to stop with the defunding noises and get down to the serious business of creating jobs and improving crumbling infrastructure rather than fiddling around with Planned Parenthood. They too will be stuck down and rightfully so.
If the legislatures were smart, they would require organizations to undergo regular financial audits as a condition for having state Medicaid funding allocated on a recurring basis. These audits would provide much needed transparency as to how the funding is used and verify that funding is not funneled to support activities other than what was intended.
These audits could quell suspicion that PP uses public funding directly or indirectly to provide abortions. The legislation requiring audits should not mention PP by name, so it can pass constitutional muster.
I am not sure what ‘indirect funding’ would be.
Maybe those with suspicions should stop having suspicions also. They Medicaid funds aren’t going for abortions.
Period.
If someone on Medicaid needs an abortion they use their rent money.
Planned Parenthood has to pay $1.4M for fraudulent Medicaid charges in Texas, so it’s not clear how you can be so certain that federal dollars never get siphoned off for abortions.
https://www.oag.state.tx.us/oagNews/release.php?id=4455
Indirect funding would be the improper use of Medicaid funding to subsidize abortion services. For example, Medicaid funding used to purchase equipment used for abortions would be indirect funding of abortion.
Who knows…it’s Texas. I don’t trust much of anything coming out of that state. I expect it will be appealed.
Besides, the charge wasn’t that money was siphoned off for abortions. I expect Texas has its own little set of rules on all this.
Keep me posted.
I doubt very seriously if abortion money and Medicaid money get mixed.
I don’t want my taxpayer dollars going to finance abstenence only sex ed programs. That’s probably a wish in one hand–piss in the other and see which fills up faster situation.
One way for PP to get all the federal and state money it wants. Completely diversify, making the abortion side completely separate.
It is separate.
@Moon-howler
Don’t ya want to just rip your hair out and scream after repeating the same info for the hundredth time?
Yes. It is like teaching a class all wearing earplugs.
@Moon-howler
The money is supposedly separate.
Planned Parenthood is the umbrella over it all.
When I mean separate…I mean completely separated. Different charter, personnel, buildings, corporate, etc. Like when Standard Oil was split up. THEN the politicians CAN’T say that Planned Parenthood is using gov’t money.
Perhaps the question you should be asking yourself is why politicians are going after the organization.
What you suggest is cost prohibitive.
Abortion is a legal service.
Wow, Texas is doing a great job going after fraud. Looks like PP was a miniscule component of their overall 400 million in funds returned.
I just find it pathetic, all these “woe the defenseless murdered babies” and yet, yet, there are hundreds of thousands of children in foster care. Why? Where are these anti abortion people? Why is it in our very own state, we have thousands of children the Governor is pushing towards permanent homes? How can there be even ONE child without a family to love them forever? Hmmm, I guess its only pre-birth that concerns these people.
@Moon-howler
So was selling oil. And I’m not even saying that abortion should be stopped. I’m saying that separating it out into a separate entity would stop the controversy. They are going after the organization because they provide abortions and it is not clear to the public that they do not get government funding for abortions. Even ObamaCare indirectly supports it.
Do you seriously think it would stop? It would not Other health facilities also provide women’s health service and and abortion. They aren’t called Planned Parenthood. The stupid part is, there is a whole right wing culture built around the founder, Margaret Sanger nearly a century ago. As long as Planned Parenthood provides reproductive control to women, it will come under attack.
I’m saying that separating it out into a separate entity would stop the controversy. They are going after the organization because they provide abortions and it is not clear to the public that they do not get government funding for abortions.
No, it wouldn’t stop the controversy.
Why is it Planned Parenthood’s fault that those people are dumb-asses?
The idea that we can separate out women’s health care services is absurd. It makes about as much sense as saying that a PSA test has to be done in a different building than a vasectomy.
Standing ovation, Censored.
“The stupid part is, there is a whole right wing culture built around the founder, Margaret Sanger nearly a century ago. ”
Right wing?
Sanger was a socialist. She associated with the Fabian Socialists and the Progressive movements.
I sure wouldn’t want to be associated with those progressive movements. Welcome Glenn Beck.
I don’t care if she was a full blown communist. What difference does that make? She made birth control affordable an available to poor women. She had watched her own mother died in childbirth after something like 15 pregnancies.
For the record, she wasn’t a socialist as we think of socialists today. She did belong to various socialist organizations. Even is she were, so what. What possible difference could it make to affordable contraception? Are you simply trying to discredit her politics? That’s the kind of nasty discussion that brings out rage in me.
Wait a minute…do you think I am saying Sanger was right wing? I was not. I was speaking about the right wing attacking Planned Parenthood because of Sanger.
Let me go on record, I don’t give a $%^&*() about Sanger’s politics. They were no different from most women of her class in that day and time.
Furthermore, I bet you think the president at the time was a socialist also.
Clarification: There is a right wing sub culture that attacks Planned Parenthood over its founder, Margaret Sanger.
“I was speaking about the right wing attacking Planned Parenthood because of Sanger.”
That was what I was talking about and that answered my question. That’s all I was asking.
Yes..there are people that attack PP over Sangers’ horrible eugenics predilections and desires for racial purity. Why not? Because she advocated for birth control….its ok to give her a pass for being a horrible person?
You have decided she is a horrible person. Not really.
I suggest you read up on what she and other intellectuals of her time thought and discussed about eugenics. Start with what were her goals. Otherwise, you are simply preaching right wing pablum. Read her own words, in context–not the excerpts the anti abortion crowd has lifted. There is much poorly researched garbage about her out there that just propagates ignorance.
Furthermore, what difference does it make? She opened her first birth control clinic back in 1916 when she was 37 years old. She did it to save women’s lives. Poor women died in droves in child birth. Check any cemetery. You are aware that people 100 years ago had different beliefs and explored different avenues of intellectual thought than they do nowadays.
Her integrity as a human being has absolutely nothing to do with the work Planned Parenthood does today. the dots the far right tries to connect lead nowhere.
Sanger didn’t advocate racial purity. She advocated that black women stop having so many children. why? They were having so many children they couldn’t feed all of them. She postulated that it was weakening the race to have so many kids growing up with poor nutrition. id I throw in that they were also dealing with the scientific knowledge of the day?