Judge blocks Texas from stripping Planned Parenthood of Medicaid funding

A federal judge has ruled on Tuesday that Texas cannot cut off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood because the state did not present evidence of any wrongdoing by the abortion provider.

U.S. District Sam Sparks said in his ruling that state health officials tried to punish Planned Parenthood based on the footage from an undercover video taken in 2015 by pro-life advocates, myStatesman reported.

Texas and several other states made efforts to cut funding from the abortion provider since the release of the videos purportedly showing Planned Parenthood officials negotiating prices for fetal tissue collected from abortions.

The judge noted that nothing in the eight hours of video or evidence presented by the Texas health officials indicated that Planned Parenthood had violated federal law, state law or Medicaid rules.

Sparks concluded that the state had acted "without cause" to remove an organization from a federal-state program that provides health care to low-income people.

"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," the judge wrote.

Stuart Bowen Jr., the inspector general for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, testified in mid-January that he moved to oust Planned Parenthood in December because the videos showed that officials were willing to change abortion procedures to better obtain fetal organs and tissue to be used in medical research.

Sparks stated in his ruling that Bowen had admitted that he had no actual evidence that any Planned Parenthood doctor had altered an abortion procedure for research or other purposes.

He also said that there was no evidence that the Planned Parenthood had profited from the sales of fetal tissue as Bowen was not able to point to a single payment received by the abortion provider that exceeded its expenses.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said that the state intends to file an appeal. He reiterated the accusations that Planned Parenthood had manipulated the timing of abortions to benefit researchers.

"No taxpayer in Texas should have to subsidize this repugnant and illegal conduct. 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," said Paxton in a statement, according to The Associated Press.