WHITE SLAVERY; AN OLD CANARD
Montana Attorney General Implies Planned Parenthood Is Trafficking Humans

Caitlin Cruz
Mon, August 14, 2023 

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen is sworn into office on Monday, Jan. 4, 2021, inside the Montana State Capitol in Helena, Mont.

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen accused Planned Parenthood of “intentionally” falsifying records and having “flagrantly violated” state laws to potentially further human trafficking, during a newly surfaced talk radio appearance on Aug. 1.

A woman identified as Marilyn called into Montana Talks, a conservative radio program broadcasted throughout the state, to ask Knudsen’s opinion on an abortion clinic in Montana to voice her concerns about its alleged connection to human trafficking. Knudsen took her accusations and ran with them.

It’s worth emphasizing—again—that while Knudsen, Montana’s top law enforcement officer, said the potential for human trafficking at (??) Planned Parenthood (???) is “something that definitely needs to be looked at by law enforcement,” he obviously doesn’t think it’s important enough for his own agency to do it. Perhaps if he believes this is such a real problem, he should turn his limited resources away from decimating abortion access and onto pursuing answers to that crisis. Let’s see what he turns up!

 Jezebel

Texas wants Planned Parenthood to repay millions of dollars

A Planned Parenthood sign is seen in Austin, Texas, Monday, Aug. 14, 2023. A federal judge who ordered restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone will consider Tuesday, Aug. 15, whether Planned Parenthood must pay potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to the state of Texas over fraud claims. 

PAUL J. WEBER
Mon, August 14, 2023 

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas wants Planned Parenthood to give back millions of dollars in Medicaid reimbursements — and pay far more in fines on top of that — in a lawsuit that appears to be the first of its kind brought by a state against the largest abortion provider in the U.S.

A hearing was set for Tuesday in front of U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who earlier this year put access to the most common method of abortion in the U.S. in limbo with a ruling that invalidated approval of the abortion pill mifepristone.

The case now before him in America's biggest red state does not surround abortion, which has been banned in Texas since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. But Planned Parenthood argues the attempt to recoup at least $17 million in Medicaid payments for health services, including cancer screenings, is a new effort to weaken the organization after years of Republican-led laws that stripped funding and imposed restrictions on how its clinics operate.

At issue is money Planned Parenthood received for health services before Texas removed the organization from the state's Medicaid program in 2021. Texas had begun trying to oust Planned Parenthood four years earlier and is seeking repayment for services billed during that time.

“This baseless case is an active effort to shut down Planned Parenthood health centers," said Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Texas brought the lawsuit under the federal False Claims Act, which allows fines for every alleged improper payment. Planned Parenthood says that could result in a judgement in excess of $1 billion.

It is not clear when Kacsmaryk will rule.

The lawsuit was announced last year by Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is now temporarily suspended from office pending the outcome of his impeachment trial next month over accusations of bribery and abuse of office.

Spokespersons for the office did not return a message seeking comment Monday. Last year, Paxton said it was “unthinkable that Planned Parenthood would continue to take advantage of funding knowing they were not entitled to keep it.”

Jacob Elberg, a former federal prosecutor who specialized in health care fraud, described Texas' argument as weak.

He called the False Claims Act the government's most powerful tool against health fraud. Cases involving the law in recent years have included a health records company in Florida and a Montana health clinic that submitted false asbestos claims.

Elberg said it is “hard to understand” how Planned Parenthood was knowingly filing false claims at a time when it was in court fighting to stay in the program and Texas was still paying the reimbursements.

“This just isn’t what the False Claims Act is supposed to be about,” said Elberg, faculty director at Seton Hall Law School's Center for Health & Pharmaceutical Law.

Planned Parenthood has roughly three dozen health clinics in Texas. One has closed since the Supreme Court ruling last year that allowed Texas to ban abortion.

A sign greets patients at a Planned Parenthood facility in Austin, Texas, Monday, Aug. 14, 2023. A federal judge who ordered restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone will consider Tuesday, Aug. 15, whether Planned Parenthood must pay potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to the state of Texas over fraud claims.

A "Love Is Love" sign greets patients at a Planned Parenthood facility in Austin, Texas, Monday, Aug. 14, 2023. A federal judge who ordered restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone will consider Tuesday, Aug. 15, whether Planned Parenthood must pay potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to the state of Texas over fraud claims. 

An exam room is seen at a Planned Parenthood facility in Austin, Texas, Monday, Aug. 14, 2023. A federal judge who ordered restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone will consider Tuesday, Aug. 15, whether Planned Parenthood must pay potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to the state of Texas over fraud claims. 

Signage is seen at a Planned Parenthood facility in Austin, Texas, Monday, Aug. 14, 2023. A federal judge who ordered restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone will consider Tuesday, Aug. 15, whether Planned Parenthood must pay potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to the state of Texas over fraud claims. 
An exam room is seen at a Planned Parenthood facility in Austin, Texas, Monday, Aug. 14, 2023. A federal judge who ordered restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone will consider Tuesday, Aug. 15, whether Planned Parenthood must pay potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to the state of Texas over fraud claims.

Signage is seen at a Planned Parenthood facility in Austin, Texas, Monday, Aug. 14, 2023. A federal judge who ordered restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone will consider Tuesday, Aug. 15, whether Planned Parenthood must pay potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to the state of Texas over fraud claims. 

AP Photos/Eric Gay

EXPOSE

Inside conservative activist Leonard Leo’s long campaign to gut Planned Parenthood

Rachana Pradham, KFF Health News
September 8, 2024 

Federalist Society

LONG READ

A federal lawsuit in Texas against Planned Parenthood has a web of ties to conservative activist Leonard Leo, whose decades-long effort to steer the U.S. court system to the right overturned Roe vs. Wade, yielding the biggest rollback of reproductive health access in half a century.

Brought by an anonymous whistleblower and later joined by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the suit alleges the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and three Planned Parenthood affiliates defrauded the Texas and Louisiana Medicaid programs by collecting $17 million for services provided while it fought state efforts to remove it as an approved provider.

The suit claims violations of the False Claims Act, an obscure but powerful law protecting the government from fraud, and seeks $1.8 billion in penalties from Planned Parenthood, according to a motion that lawyers for the whistleblower filed in federal court in 2023.

The lawsuit builds on efforts over years by the religious right and politicians who oppose abortion to deliver blows to Planned Parenthood — which provides sexual and reproductive health care at nearly 600 sites nationwide — now bolstered by Leo’s work reshaping the American judiciary.

Anti-abortion groups and their allies secured a generational victory in 2022 when the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, which ended the constitutional right to abortion and paved the way for bans or severe restrictions in 20 states. The court challenge in Texas demonstrates how the forces behind the end of Roe threaten access to other health and family planning services.

The Planned Parenthood clinics being sued do not provide abortions. They are in Texas and Louisiana, which banned nearly all abortions, respectively, in 2021 and 2022.

Leo, an anti-abortion Catholic, is connected to the key players in the Texas lawsuit — the whistleblower plaintiff, an attorney general, and the judge — according to a KFF Health News review of tax records, court documents from multiple lawsuits, statements to lawmakers, and website archives.

Leo provided legal counsel to the anti-abortion group at its center, and he has financial and other connections to Paxton.

They filed the case in federal court in Amarillo, Texas, where Matthew Kacsmaryk is the only judge. He is a longtime member of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal juggernaut for which Leo has worked for over 25 years in various capacities and currently serves as co-chair.

Kacsmaryk’s rulings have curtailed access to reproductive health since the Senate confirmed him in 2019. He suspended the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, a drug used in medication abortion, propelling the issue to the Supreme Court, which ultimately threw out the case. In another case, Kacsmaryk ruled to limit young people’s access to birth control through a federal family planning program.

Leo did not respond to questions for this article and a spokesperson declined to comment. Through a court spokesperson, Kacsmaryk declined to comment for this article.

The anonymous whistleblower in 2021 accused the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood affiliates of defrauding the Medicaid programs of Texas and Louisiana. Paxton, who has repeatedly acted to thwart abortion rights and joined the case in 2022, alleges in the lawsuit that clinics received payments they weren’t entitled to from Texas Medicaid from early 2017 to early 2021 as the state was pushing to end Planned Parenthood’s status as a Medicaid provider. Louisiana and the Department of Justice have not joined the complaint.

The lawsuit’s origins go back a decade. The anonymous whistleblower, between 2013 and 2015, “conducted an undercover investigation to determine whether Planned Parenthood’s fetal tissue procurement practices were continuing, and if they were legal and/or ethical,” according to the whistleblower’s complaint filed in 2021.

The explanation mimics how the Center for Medical Progress, a California-based anti-abortion group founded by activist David Daleiden in 2013, has publicly described its work. “The Human Capital project is a 30-month-long investigative journalism study by The Center for Medical Progress, documenting how Planned Parenthood sells the body parts of aborted babies,” the group states on its website.

In a November 2022 court order, Kacsmaryk said the private party initiating the lawsuit is “the president of CMP,” the title Daleiden held at that time, according to a Center for Medical Progress tax filing.

The Center for Medical Progress and Daleiden did not respond to requests for comment.

By law, federal funds can’t pay for abortions unless the pregnancy threatens the life of a woman or is the result of rape or incest, but the program reimburses for other care such as contraception, screenings for sexually transmitted infections, and cancer screenings. Medicaid, which provides health coverage for people with low incomes, is jointly financed by states and the federal government.

According to its 2022-23 annual report, Planned Parenthood affiliate clinics provided 9.13 million health care services to 2.05 million patients nationally in 2022. Testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections accounted for about half of those services, contraception amounted to a quarter, and abortions constituted 4%.


Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, which operates clinics in Texas and Louisiana, is among the branches Paxton and the whistleblower are suing. From July 2022 to June 2023, its clinics provided patients more than 86,000 tests for sexually transmitted infections, 44,000 visits for birth control, and nearly 7,000 cancer screening and prevention services, CEO Melaney Linton told KFF Health News.

“All of these services and more are at risk in this politically motivated lawsuit,” Linton said. The lawsuit’s allegations “are false. Planned Parenthood did not commit Medicaid fraud.”

Linton has said the lawsuit’s purpose is clear: “trying to shut Planned Parenthood down.”

Texas terminated Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid participation in March 2021. Until then, affiliates “were entitled to receive reimbursement” for services to Medicaid patients because their provider agreements with Texas’ Medicaid program were valid, attorneys for the Planned Parenthood clinics wrote in a February 2023 court filing in support of their motion for summary judgment.

Louisiana has not removed Planned Parenthood from its Medicaid program.

Leo served as legal counsel to the Center for Medical Progress, according to documents produced as part of a separate lawsuit Planned Parenthood filed in federal court in California against the anti-abortion group. Among those, a July 2018 document lists 25 emails Leo and Daleiden traded in June and July 2015, including in the days before the anti-abortion group released its first video.


Paxton’s ties to Leo can be traced back at least a decade to when the former state senator and rising conservative star was about to begin his first term as attorney general.

In 2014, Leo, then executive vice president of the Federalist Society, was a rare non-Texan named to Paxton’s attorney general transition advisory team. Tax filings show that the Concord Fund, one of several Leo-linked groups that spend money to influence elections and aren’t required to disclose their donors, gave $20.3 million from July 2014 through June 2023 to the Republican Attorneys General Association, the political nonprofit that works to elect Republicans as states’ top law enforcement officers. Known as RAGA, the group funneled more than $1.2 million to Paxton’s campaign over three election cycles from 2014 to 2022, Texas campaign finance records show.

Texas government officials knew the state was reimbursing Planned Parenthood clinics for medical services from 2017 to 2021, which renders the state’s argument that clinics violated the False Claims Act “without merit,” said Jacob Elberg, a professor at Seton Hall Law School and an expert in health care fraud.


The law is intended for situations “where essentially someone submits a claim for payment or keeps money that they’re not entitled to where they have information that the government doesn’t have,” Elberg said. “And they essentially know that if the government knew the truth, the government wouldn’t pay them or would be demanding money back.”

But with Planned Parenthood, “everything involved here happened out in the open,” Elberg said. “They were submitting bills and the government knew what was going on and was paying those bills.”

The plaintiffs’ arguments are a “tortured use” of the False Claims Act, said Sarah Saldaña, a former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas.


“Things like this, which have these obvious political overtones, tend to undermine further the view of the public of the judicial courts system,” Saldaña said.

The office of the attorney general did not respond to requests for comment.

Anti-abortion groups support the Paxton lawsuit even though abortion is essentially outlawed in the Lone Star State. Planned Parenthood “is still a pro-abortion organization,” said John Seago, president of Texas Right to Life. Even though Planned Parenthood provides other care, “all of those services are tainted by their pro-abortion mindset,” he said.

“Planned Parenthood is a danger to Texans. We wish that Planned Parenthood didn’t have a single location within our state,” Seago said. “Whenever the state pays Planned Parenthood to do something, even if it’s a good service, we are building up their brand and giving them more reach into our Texas communities.”

Roughly three dozen Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas continue to provide non-abortion services like birth control and STI screenings. The $1.8 billion the whistleblower is seeking is equivalent to nearly 90% of Planned Parenthood’s annual revenue, according to its most recent annual report.
The Campaign Against Planned Parenthood



The Center for Medical Progress was little known in 2015 when it began releasing videos containing explosive allegations that Planned Parenthood was illegally selling tissue from aborted fetuses, which Planned Parenthood denies.

The group and Daleiden had ties to powerful anti-abortion organizations. They include Live Action, where Daleiden worked before creating the Center for Medical Progress, and Operation Rescue, the Kansas-based group that staged demonstrations against George Tiller’s abortion clinic in that state before a gunman killed the physician in 2009.

“The evidence I am gathering deeply implicates Planned Parenthood affiliates across the country in multiple felonies and can trigger severe legal and financial consequences for PP and their associates, while providing new justifications for state defunding efforts and turning public opinion against Planned Parenthood and abortion,” Daleiden wrote in a May 2013 email produced as part of the litigation Planned Parenthood brought in California. The subject line: “Meeting to Take Down PP.”

Texas tried to remove Planned Parenthood clinics from its Medicaid program following the center’s release of the undercover videos, a move that was part of a larger political firestorm. Roughly a dozen states launched investigations into the reproductive health provider, and Republicans in Congress renewed calls to strip Planned Parenthood of government funding.

Paxton made his feelings clear about abortion as he pursued an investigation of Planned Parenthood in Texas. During a July 29, 2015, legislative hearing, he said “the true abomination in all of this is the institution of abortion.”

“We are rightfully horrified by what we’ve seen on these videos,” Paxton said. “However these videos also serve as a larger reminder that, as a society, we’ve turned a blind eye to the gruesome horrors that occur in abortion clinics across America every single day. They remind us that this industry as a whole has lost the perspective of humanity.”

Planned Parenthood denied selling fetal tissue and other claims in the videos, some of which contained graphic footage. It said the videos were “deceptive” and heavily edited to be misleading. A grand jury in Texas cleared Planned Parenthood of wrongdoing.

Daleiden worked on the center’s “Human Capital Project” for years, receiving advice from Leo and his associates, according to the Center for Medical Progress’ website, and Daleiden’s email correspondence and other documents produced as part of the separate lawsuit in federal court in California.

The July 2018 document filed as part of the litigation in California describes emails between Leo and Daleiden as “providing legal communication with counsel regarding legal planning” and “for counsel to provide legal advice regarding investigative journalism methods and the legality of fetal tissue procurement practices,” among other descriptions. Daleiden sent one email to Leo “regarding legal planning” on July 13, 2015, the day before the Center for Medical Progress released its first video.

A November 2018 letter from the Center for Medical Progress’ lawyers stated “CMP was receiving legal advice” from Leo, as well as other conservative lawyers and organizations. Lawyers representing the center and Daleiden in a December 2018 legal filing said Leo “provided legal advice on how to ensure successful prosecutions of the criminal actors which CMP identified.”

In its defense, Planned Parenthood has said it billed the Texas Medicaid program for reimbursement for “ lawfully provided” services from February 2017 to March 2021 as a participating Medicaid provider in the state.

In 2015 and 2017, federal courts in Louisiana and Texas blocked those states from terminating Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid provider agreements. Judge John deGravelles of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana said the state was prohibited “from suspending Medicaid payments to (Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast) for services rendered to Medicaid beneficiaries.”

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in November 2020 vacated the Texas and Louisiana injunctions, but the court never weighed in on clawing back Medicaid funds that had been paid to clinics. Texas terminated Planned Parenthood in March 2021, following a state court ruling.

Texas and the whistleblower argue that, once the court injunctions were lifted, Planned Parenthood’s termination from each state’s Medicaid program became effective years earlier — 2015 in Louisiana and 2017 in Texas — due to the dates that state officials gave clinics final notice.

Planned Parenthood has argued that it is under no obligation to return payments received while injunctions were in place. Kacsmaryk disagrees. In a recently unsealed summary judgment order in the case, the judge wrote that Planned Parenthood clinics “had an obligation to repay the government payments they received as a matter of law.”

The order was unsealed after attorneys for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press intervened. The committee argued the public has a presumptive and constitutional right to access judicial records, and that Kacsmaryk’s stated concerns — which included the tainting of a potential jury pool or jeopardizing the safety of those involved in the lawsuit — didn’t justify keeping the document secret.

Kacsmaryk’s brief justification for sealing the document, contained in the order itself, “was very thin,” said Katie Townsend, legal director for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

She said his decision to seal such an important document was “highly unusual” and “very troubling.”

“Those orders are almost always completely public,” she said.
What Paxton Gains



Paxton has publicly toyed with the idea of pursuing federal office, and former President Donald Trump has said he’d consider him for U.S. attorney general should Trump return to the White House.

For Republicans in Texas, there are political benefits to going after Planned Parenthood, said Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University in Houston. “Doing anything punitive against Planned Parenthood and anything that would reduce the ability of Planned Parenthood to be active and effective in Texas is going to be greeted with near-universal consensus within the Republican primary electorate,” Jones said. “There’s no downside to it.”

The Republican Attorneys General Association, which can accept unlimited political donations that it distributes to candidates, is a Paxton supporter. Campaign finance records show it gave more than $730,000 to Paxton’s attorney general campaigns in 2014 and 2018.

Tax filings show that the Marble Freedom Trust, a political nonprofit where Leo serves as trustee and chair, gave the Concord Fund $100.9 million from May 2020 through April 2023. During the 2022 election cycle, the Concord Fund gave $6.5 million to RAGA, which then contributed $500,000 to Paxton’s campaign. It was tied as the highest contribution to the Texas attorney general, matched by a $500,000 contribution from a political action committee backed by conservative Texas billionaires, according to Transparency USA, a nonprofit that tracks spending in state politics.

RAGA has praised Leo’s role, calling him its “greatest champion.”

“Leonard Leo has helped shape the trajectory of RAGA and the conservative legal movement more than anyone else. As RAGA’s greatest champion, Leonard Leo reimagined the role of the state attorney general and promoted men and women dedicated to the persistence of the rule of law and the original meaning of the Constitution,” reads a RAGA website post from 2019 that has since been deleted.

“You want access to Leo because Leo gives you access to money,” said Chris Toth, former executive director of the National Association of Attorneys General.

In many conservative states like Texas, Toth said, “the issue is worrying about getting primaried. And that is where playing nice with Leonard Leo and the Concord Fund come in because if you’re on their side, basically, you’re going to have no problem gettingreelected.”

The Concord Fund gave $4 million to RAGA between July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023, four times what it gave the prior fiscal year.

Abortion rights supporters have warned that they anticipate ongoing reproductive health battles in Texas and beyond, with access to contraception, fertility services, and other types of care under threat.

As an example, some point to the Griswold vs. Connecticut decision from 1965, in which the Supreme Court legalized the use of contraception among married couples. The high court ruled that a state law violated a constitutional right to privacy, a rationale that was central to Roe vs. Wad e eight years later.

In a 2017 speech at the Acton Institute, a conservative think tank, Leo criticized Griswold as a decision amounting to “the creation of rights found nowhere in the text or structure of the Constitution.”

The Planned Parenthood lawsuit in Texas is expected to go to trial, potentially this year. The central question is whether Planned Parenthood knowingly withheld money owed to the government.

All the while the public is expressing greater uncertainty about rights once considered constitutionally guaranteed. In a KFF poll conducted in February, 1 in 5 adults said the right to use contraception is threatened and likely to be overturned.

Fewer than half of adults considered it to be secure.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism.

Indiana case before U.S. Supreme Court could help red states defund Planned Parenthood


Tony Cook and Johnny Magdaleno, Indianapolis Star
Mon, October 17, 2022 

A controversial U.S. Supreme Court case that Marion County’s public health agency is pursuing could make it easier for red states across the country to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood.

Although the case began as a dispute over alleged poor nursing home care, the sweeping nature of what the Health & Hospital Corp. of Marion County is asking the Supreme Court to do would have far-reaching repercussions.

Among them: Taking away a key legal tool that Planned Parenthood has used to beat back efforts to defund the organization in Republican-led states, including Indiana.

Health & Hospital, the public agency that operates the Marion County Health Department and the Sidney & Lois Eskenazi Hospital, wants the high court to ban private lawsuits over federal safety net programs like Medicaid. If justices agree, millions of beneficiaries would lose their ability to sue when state and local governments violate their federal rights or improperly withhold benefits.

More:Marion County agency wants SCOTUS to strip protections for millions of vulnerable Americans

But it’s not just individual recipients who would be prohibited from suing. Providers such as Planned Parenthood also would be barred from bringing lawsuits.

That prospect has led Republican states across the country to latch onto Health & Hospital’s case.

A successful legal strategy

For years, Planned Parenthood has successfully used a federal law passed after the Civil War to block efforts to ban the reproductive health care provider from receiving Medicaid funds because it provides abortions.

The law, known as Section 1983, allows citizens to sue when a state or local government violates their rights under federal law. Planned Parenthood has successfully used the law to file lawsuits against states that withhold Medicaid funds, arguing such bans violate the Medicaid Act’s guarantee that recipients can receive care from any qualified provider of their choice.

The first of those cases took place in Indiana.

Although Planned Parenthood was already barred from using federal funds to pay for abortions except in rare cases, Indiana lawmakers wanted to go further. In 2011, they passed a law preventing Medicaid recipients from accessing any health care services at Planned Parenthood clinics.

Planned Parenthood sued to stop the ban and won.

The lawsuit preserved access to Planned Parenthood’s health care services for about 9,000 patients who depend on Medicaid, said Rebecca Gibron, CEO for Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai‘i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky. Those services include cancer screenings, contraception and STD testing.

More:Law banning Planned Parenthood funding is invalidated

“Indiana’s previous attempt to block these patients from accessing family planning services at our health centers was not only rightly found to be unlawful by the courts but also dangerous and cruel, putting at risk our already underserved communities,” Gibron said in an emailed statement.

A ‘perfect opportunity’ to prohibit Planned Parenthood lawsuits

Indiana’s defeat didn’t deter other Republican-led states from trying to implement their own bans. With a few exceptions, courts have sided with Planned Parenthood.

Health & Hospital’s case now pending before the Supreme Court could change that dynamic. A ruling in its favor could prevent lawsuits like the one Planned Parenthood filed in Indiana.

That’s one reason why Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita and 21 other Republican attorneys general have intervened.

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita speaks to about 100 supporters at the Indiana Statehouse who are against government mask mandates, Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021, during Organization Day.

In a brief submitted to the Supreme Court, Rokita argues that Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit in 2011 interfered in a matter that should have been worked out between the state and federal health officials.

“Political accountability demands … that the federal government be the one to decide in the first instance both whether a material breach has occurred and what the proper remedy is — in short, to put its money where its mouth is,” the brief says.

Rokita’s views are likely to feature prominently in the case because Health & Hospital has granted part of its oral argument time to his office.

State officials from South Carolina have also filed a brief in support of Health & Hospital. That state’s governor, Henry McMaster, issued an executive order to cease any state payments for services provided at abortion clinics. The order was blocked, though, after Planned Parenthood successfully challenged it in court.

Health & Hospital’s case “presents the perfect opportunity” for the Supreme Court to clarify that lawsuits like the one Planned Parenthood filed against South Carolina should not be allowed because Congress has not explicitly authorized them, South Carolina argues in its brief.

Millions of dollars at stake

Even if the Supreme Court bans such lawsuits, Planned Parenthood could still try to sue based on other constitutional claims. The federal government could also intervene. But the organization’s most accessible and successful legal strategy for preserving access to its services for Medicaid patients would be thwarted.

Given that Indiana was the first state to ban Medicaid patients from using Planned Parenthood’s services — and the first state Planned Parenthood defeated in court — it is not surprising that Rokita and other Republican leaders have glommed onto the Health & Hospital case, said Sara Rosenbaum, a health law and policy professor at George Washington University.

“The state has been smarting from that ever since,” she said. “This is their retribution I suppose.”

More:Here's why Nancy Pelosi, Todd Rokita, Biden administration care about Indiana nursing home case

Federal health care programs are a key source of funding for Planned Parenthood. Last year, the organization received $633 million in government funding, according to the organization’s latest annual report. That’s about 37 percent of its total revenue. Most of that government funding comes from Medicaid and the Title X family planning program.

In Indiana, Planned Parenthood received about $1.68 million in Medicaid payments during the last fiscal year, according to the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration.

“If they can get the Supreme Court to knock out (Section) 1983 not just for nursing home beneficiaries, but more generally, then they can eliminate Planned Parenthood tomorrow,” Rosenbaum said.

Planned Parenthood isn’t the only provider who would be affected. For example, lawsuits from hospitals or other health care providers who claim their state governments improperly denied or delayed Medicaid payments would also be barred from suing in federal court for alleged violations of the Medicaid Act.

What’s next

The Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments in Health & Hospital’s case for Nov. 8.

In the meantime, a coalition of liberal activists and advocates for low-income, elderly and disabled people are putting pressure on Health & Hospital to withdraw the case.

They are outraged that Health & Hospital, a Democrat-led public health agency, is teaming up with staunch anti-abortion opponents such as Rokita to scrap the legal rights of millions of vulnerable Americans, along with providers like Planned Parenthood.

The pressure has led several members of the Indianapolis City-County Council, which appoints two of Health & Hospital’s board members, to call on the agency to withdraw its Supreme Court case. At least two Democrats in the General Assembly ― Sen. Fady Qaddoura and Rep. Cherrish Pryor ― have also publicly called for a withdrawal.

Others in their party have criticized Health & Hospital’s pursuit of the case, but stopped short of demanding it retreat from the high court.

In a statement posted to Twitter, Congressman André Carson of Indianapolis said on Thursday he was “very concerned and disappointed to see a lawsuit filed that could make it harder for low-income patients to exercise their rights if they’ve been mistreated.”

Andre Carson, U.S. House of Representatives member, speaks at the national convention for the Young Democrats of America, held in Indianapolis, Friday, July 19, 2019.

“I am also concerned about the lack of community input, which is critical when a public agency is making such a critical decision,” he said.

Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett, who appoints three of Health & Hospital's board members, broke his silence on the case last week when he told IndyStar the agency's Supreme Court petition was “a step too far.”

More:Mayor Hogsett says health agency went 'a step too far' with SCOTUS case, calls for change

So far, Health & Hospital has refused to comment publicly on the sweeping nature of its request. The agency’s board never held a public meeting or vote regarding the decision to petition the Supreme Court.

A spokesman for the agency did not respond to an interview request for this story. Nor did Rokita’s office.

Instead, he doubled down on his support for the case in a lengthy news release Friday.

“When individual beneficiaries bring unauthorized lawsuits to enforce federal grant conditions, they invite unelected federal judges to interfere with how state and federal officials carry out the jobs the public expects them to perform," he said. "The proper functioning of democracy requires that such judicial interference not occur unless Congress has expressly authorized it."

He concluded: “Our office is proud to fight for the fiscal integrity of the state when administering federal programs. We look forward to combining forces with the Marion County Health and Hospital Corporation to argue this case in the U.S. Supreme Court next month.”

Health & Hospital’s next board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday at 2 p.m. at Eskenazi Hospital. The board plans to discuss the case in an executive session prior to the meeting, but it’s unclear if it will discuss the case publicly or take any action.

Contact IndyStar reporter Tony Cook at 317-444-6081 or tony.cook@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter: @IndyStarTony.

Call IndyStar courts reporter Johnny Magdaleno at 317-273-3188 or email him at jmagdaleno@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter: @IndyStarJohnny.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Supreme Court case could help red states defund Planned Parenthood

McConnell calls on Barr to investigate Planned Parenthood loans

The Republican complaints about the Planned Parenthood loans add a new dynamic of conservative outrage around the small business rescue.


Attorney General William Barr. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

By ZACHARY WARMBRODT
05/21/2020 POLITICO

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans are demanding that Attorney General William Barr investigate Planned Parenthood centers that got emergency small business loans under a government program intended to avert layoffs.

In a letter Thursday to Barr, 27 GOP senators led by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and McConnell said Planned Parenthood affiliates received about $80 million in loans under the so-called Paycheck Protection Program but should have been ineligible — a claim that Planned Parenthood disputes.

"It was not designed to give government funds to politicized, partisan abortion providers like Planned Parenthood," the senators wrote. "The funds in the program are not unlimited and were depleted once already because of high demand."



The Republican complaints about the Planned Parenthood loans add a new dynamic of conservative outrage around the small business rescue, following a public uproar over large, well-financed companies like Shake Shack and the Los Angeles Lakers receiving the aid.

The GOP lawmakers are homing in on a warning that the Small Business Administration made to Planned Parenthood representatives in recent days. In a letter seen by POLITICO, the SBA told one Planned Parenthood affiliate that it was ineligible under the Paycheck Protection Program's size standards and that its loan should be returned.

The loans are generally targeted at businesses and nonprofits with no more than 500 employees, though Congress allowed flexibility for larger employers to apply.

The SBA also has restrictions governing how affiliates of the same organization qualify for the aid. In the case of Planned Parenthood, the agency appears to have taken the position that the group's affiliates around the country are subject to enough discretion from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America that they're ineligible for the loans. A spokesperson for the SBA declined to comment on individual borrowers.

YOU'RE FORGIVEN IF YOU THOUGHT ABORTION WAS ILLEGAL IN THE USA

Planned Parenthood argues that the "independent" Planned Parenthood 501(c)(3) organizations that were awarded the loans complied with the rules of the program.

Jacqueline Ayers, Planned Parenthood Federation of America vice president of government relations and public policy, said the pressure was a "clear political attack on Planned Parenthood health centers and access to reproductive health care."

"It has nothing to do with Planned Parenthood health care organizations’ eligibility for Covid-19 relief efforts, and everything to do with the Trump administration using a public health crisis to advance a political agenda and distract from their own failures in protecting the American public from the spread of Covid-19," she said. "It is also just the latest salvo in the Trump administration's long history of targeting Planned Parenthood, and trying to severely limit access to sexual and reproductive health care."

The Justice Department acknowledged receiving the senators' request to investigate the matter but didn't elaborate.

"We have received and are reviewing the letter," department spokesperson Peter Carr said.

TRUMPETTES SUPPORT CHOICE FOR MASKS BUT NOT FOR ABORTION

SMALL VICTORIES
US Supreme Court rebuffs dispute over videos targeting abortion providers

Andrew Chung
Mon, October 2, 2023 

 Anti-abortion activist David Daleiden, waits outside Superior Court in San Francisco

By Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a bid by anti-abortion activists to throw out more than $2 million in damages they were ordered to pay Planned Parenthood after secretly recording video of abortion providers in a scheme to try to show the illicit sale of aborted fetal tissue for profit.

The justices turned away the appeal by David Daleiden and his group, the Center for Medical Progress, of a lower court's decision in 2022 upholding most of the damages in a lawsuit by Planned Parenthood, a women's healthcare and abortion provider, accusing the defendants of conspiracy, eavesdropping and other claims. The lower court rejected the argument made by the defendants that with the secret recording they were exercising their right to free speech under the U.S. Constitution.

The justices announced their action on the first day of their new nine-month term.

Planned Parenthood filed suit in 2016 against Daleiden and his California-based organization in federal court in San Francisco seeking monetary damages, accusing them of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and engaging in fraud, trespassing, breach of contract and illegal secret recording.

The case before the Supreme Court centered on whether Planned Parenthood, even though it did not sue for defamation, should have to overcome strict limits that the justices through past rulings have placed on damages that public figures may recover for alleged harms related to a publication.

Various activist groups on the left and right conduct undercover operations often involving secret recording. Daleiden and his team portray themselves as investigative journalists and have said that the judgment against them in the suit threatens undercover reporting, a technique that can help expose wrongdoing and corruption.

Planned Parenthood has said the defendants are "ideological activists" - not journalists - whose videos were heavily edited as part of a smear campaign aimed at destroying the organization.

Using a shell company and fake identification, the activists gained access to Planned Parenthood and National Abortion Federation conferences and other locations where they recorded staff using hidden cameras.

The Center for Medical Progress released videos in 2015 purporting to expose Planned Parenthood officials trafficking in aborted fetal parts, sparking controversy, congressional inquiries and investigations in various states.

Planned Parenthood denied profiting from fetal tissue donation for medical research. Lower courts concluded that the videos did not contain evidence of wrongdoing.

A jury sided with Planned Parenthood in the lawsuit, and a judge awarded $2.4 million in damages - including for security costs to prevent future infiltration and targeting of doctors and staff - as well as more than $13 million in attorneys' fees and costs that are the subject of a separate appeal.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld most of the award last year, concluding that the First Amendment did not protect the defendants.

Noting that damages had been awarded for harms related to the infiltration, not to Planned Parenthood's reputation, the 9th Circuit said, "Invoking journalism and the First Amendment does not shield individuals from liability for violations of laws applicable to all members of society."

Daleiden and another activist also face an upcoming criminal trial in California in connection with the secret recordings.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)

Supreme Court declines to take up appeal from anti-abortion group that secretly recorded clinics

Ariane de Vogue, CNN Supreme Court Reporter
Mon, October 2, 2023 


Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

The Supreme Court declined on Monday to take up an appeal from an anti-abortion group known for releasing secretly recorded footage of abortion providers, leaving in place a lower court ruling that went in favor of Planned Parenthood.

The anti-abortion group had argued that its actions were protected by the First Amendment and sought to reverse millions of dollars in damages awarded to the abortion providers.

The case involved David Daleiden, a longtime anti-abortion activist who partnered with other like-minded activists, Troy Newman and Albin Rhomberg, to start a group called the Center for Medical Progress, meant to infiltrate organizations like Planned Parenthood.

According to court papers, they created a tissue procurement company they called BioMax. Such companies obtain human tissue samples, including fetal tissue, and provide them to medical researchers.

Although the company had a website and promotional materials, it was not involved in any business activity. Daleiden, using a false name, posed as the company’s procurement manager and vice president of operations.

According to court papers, employees used fake driver’s licenses and other means to infiltrate conferences that Planned Parenthood hosted or attended, and they arranged and attended lunch meetings and with Planned Parenthood staff, visiting health clinics. During these meetings, they recorded Planned Parenthood staff without their consent over a year and a half and then released on the internet edited videos of the conversations.

Planned Parenthood brought suit in January 2016 asking for monetary damages and other relief.

A district court ruled in favor of Planned Parenthood and awarded the group statutory, compensatory and punitive damages.

A panel of judges on the 9th circuit agreed that the damages were allowed under the First Amendment but rejected the claim under the Federal Wiretap Act.

“The First Amendment right to gather news within legal bounds does not exempt journalists from thaws of general applicability,” the court held.

“The First Amendment is not a license to trespass, to steal or to intrude by electronic means into the precincts of another’s home or office,” the court said in its opinion.

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RIGHT WING WATCH

Pro-life group convinces 34 Christian universities to stop promoting Planned Parenthood

THE ATTACK ON PP IS BECAUSE THEY PROVIDE BIRTH CONTROL

RACHEL LALGIE - UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA •JANUARY 3, 2022

‘As an organization on more than 1,250 campuses in all 50 states, we are going to keep going back until we have built a culture of life on campuses nationwide’ Students for Life says

Students for Life of America has succeeded in less than a year in convincing 34 of 103 Christian universities with ties to the abortion industry to sever the connections.

The national pro-life student organization launched its initial list of 25 schools in March and said it wanted to disrupt the “unholy partnership” between Planned Parenthood and Christian universities.

The Christian Schools Project identified 103 religious universities, out of 784 total with some Christian-affiliation, that promoted Planned Parenthood or the abortion industry in some way.

Students for Life contacted the 103 universities twice over email and once through a phone call to give the universities an opportunity to remove the Planned Parenthood content before the report came out in December.

The most frequent infraction, according to SFLA, is that the university lists Planned Parenthood as a resource for students or encourages internships at the nation’s largest abortion vendor.

This tells students that abortion is a good option if they are pregnant, SFLA told The College Fix.

“When a Christian university is promoting the nation’s largest abortion vendor to that vendor’s target clientele, it is reinforcing the mistaken notion that women cannot finish school or succeed in life with a child and failing to provide the spiritual formation and tangible support,” spokesperson Lauren Enriquez told The Fix via email.

“Planned Parenthood has spent a lot of money convincing women that they can’t multitask a successful life,” Enriquez said.

The next step is to work with the 69 schools that still maintain connections to the abortion industry to convince them to end the relationship and promotion of Planned Parenthood.

“Now we are enlisting the public’s help to address the remaining 69 schools,” Lauren Enriquez told The Fix. “As an organization on more than 1,250 campuses in all 50 states, we are going to keep going back until we have built a culture of life on campuses nationwide.”

Comprehensive review includes if the university actively supports pregnant, parenting students

Students for Life ranked all 784 universities from A+ to F based on how many criteria fit each university, such as Planned Parenthood provided as an internship, student resource, or career opportunity.

A+ represented universities with no relationship to Planned Parenthood and a deliberate attempt to help pregnant and parenting students.

The Fix reached out to two A+ universities, Abilene Christian and Liberty, but did not receive a response. The Fix asked both schools on December 17 and 21 why it was important to them to not have ties to Planned Parenthood.

Three F rated universities, which list Planned Parenthood as a student health resource, did not respond to requests for comment. The Fix asked the media relations team for Emory University, Macalester College and Rhodes College if the schools planned to address the relationships with Planned Parenthood, if they see any conflict between Planned Parenthood and Christianity, and if they ever encourages students to have abortions, but received no response.

Catholic universities represented the largest portion of the 34 universities to cut ties with Planned Parenthood. Students for Life originally identified 22 problematic Catholic universities, but that number has been reduced to 8.

Enriquez told The Fix that some of the colleges removed the Planned Parenthood content without notifying Students for Life. “We learned that they had cut ties thanks to our ongoing research.”

MORE: Abortion activists disrupt pro-life conference at Pitt

Editor’s note: College Fix associate editor Matt Lamb worked on portions of this project while an employee of Students for Life of America and Students for Life Action.

GOP ANTI-PROGRESSIVE RACE WAR ON RIGHTS

Tennessee cuts HIV program with Planned Parenthood ties

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee answers questioning during a panel discussion at the Republican Governors Association conference on Nov. 15, 2022, in Orlando, Fla. According to a letter from Planned Parenthood, Tennessee's Department of Health in November alerted the organization that it would no longer receive HIV prevention grants starting in 2023, as well as warn that the state was terminating its partnership with the organization to provide HIV testing. Planned Parenthood declared that Lee's administration was choosing the “nuclear option” in order to avoid having to work with the organization. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack, File) 

KIMBERLEE KRUESI
Fri, January 20, 2023 at 2:17 PM MST·5 min read

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Top Tennessee health officials attempted to oust Planned Parenthood from a program designed to prevent and treat HIV before eventually deciding to forgo federal funding for the program, despite warnings that doing so will have a devastating impact on marginalized communities, documents show.

The decision is the latest development in a ruby red state where abortion is already banned. Republicans leaders, however, have actively tried to cut off public ties with the organization for any other services, due to its long history of offering and defending abortion care.

According to a letter from Planned Parenthood, Tennessee's Department of Health in November alerted the organization that it would no longer receive HIV prevention grants starting in 2023, as well as warn that the state was terminating its partnership with Planned Parenthood to provide HIV testing.

The letter, which was obtained by The Associated Press, was sent to the health agency's general counsel, Mary Katherine Bratton, on Nov. 16.

The document states that United Way — which distributes the HIV federal funding grant on the health agency's behalf — said the department wanted to sever ties with Planned Parenthood “for reasons wholly unrelated to the purpose of the program.”

“As United Way reported: ‘TDH said given the current political climate we are not moving forward with funding Planned Parenthood,’ and TDH 'can no longer directly or indirectly fund (Planned Parenthood),'” wrote Planned Parenthood's attorney Alan E. Schoenfeld.

Schoenfeld added that Planned Parenthood wanted to avoid litigation and requested a meeting later that month. The issue was eventually dropped until this week, when the Department of Health announced it was choosing to walk away from the federal HIV prevention, detection and treatment funding and instead would rely on state funding for such efforts starting June 1. The Commercial Appeal was the first to report the announcement.

The department’s move was a shock to many of the participating organizations tasked with providing vital HIV services across the state. Planned Parenthood, which has worked with the state to distribute free condoms for more than a decade, declared that Republican Gov. Bill Lee’s administration was choosing the “nuclear option” in order to avoid having to work with the organization.

“This is yet another public health crisis manufactured by Gov. Lee,” said Ashley Coffield, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi. “They are using Planned Parenthood as the entry way to take down the whole sexual and reproductive health care system. We’re often the most public target, but this affects so many groups.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Health declined to directly answer questions about why they attempted to cut Planned Parenthood from the HIV program in November. Instead, they provided a Jan. 17 letter explaining that “prior administrations” had decided to accept the federal funding for HIV surveillance but the state has determined “it is in the best interest of Tennesseans for the State to assume direct financial and managerial responsibility for these services.”

“The funding for this HIV prevention program is very important and it’s important that it is spent effectively and efficiently in the ways that best serve Tennessee,” Lee told reporters Friday. “We think we can do that better than the strings attached with the federal dollars that came our way and that’s why we made that decision.”

Tennessee’s health agency’s website says the CDC grant helps fund: “HIV counseling, testing and referral, HIV partner counseling and referral services, HIV health education and risk reduction programs, HIV prevention for positive individuals, public information programs, a toll-free HIV/STD hotline, capacity building programs, and a quality assurance and evaluation component.”

The website goes on to say that state funding provides additional support for HIV testing, but it does not give an amount.

Separately, Lee appointed Ralph Alvarado as the new health commissioner in late November. Alvarado is a former Kentucky state senator who has publicly opposed most abortion access. Alvarado officially took over the role on Monday, just two days before the department announced it would cut off the HIV federal funding.

Planned Parenthood has since been removed from the health agency’s website that lists community organizations that distribute free condoms.

“There’s nothing pro-life about punishing people who are living with HIV and enabling this virus to spread undetected,” said Democratic state Sen. London Lamar of Memphis.

Lamar added that public health efforts have helped slow the spread of HIV in Tennessee and that cutting off federal funding “endangers the lives of Tennesseans.”

Planned Parenthood has partnered with Tennessee’s Department of Health to provide HIV testing since 2008, when Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen was in office. Four years later, under then Republican Gov. Bill Haslam’s administration, the health agency attempted to remove Planned Parenthood from the program — a move that was ultimately challenged in court.

A district court later found that the department had targeted Planned Parenthood “based upon their First Amendment activity for advocating abortion” and issued a permanent injunction preventing the state from dissolving any partnership with the organization because of their abortion care advocacy. That injunction is still in place.

Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood has been forced to stop all abortion services ever since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion last year.

___

Associated Press writer Jonathan Mattise contributed to this report.

Tennessee says it's cutting federal HIV funding. Will other GOP states follow?



Erika Edwards
Fri, January 20, 2023 

Health officials in Tennessee say they will reject federal funding for groups that provide services to residents living with HIV.

Earlier this week, the Tennessee Department of Health announced it would no longer accept grant money from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earmarked for testing, prevention and treatment of HIV.

In an email reviewed by NBC News, the Department of Health told certain nonprofit organizations that provide these services that the state would turn down the federal funding as of June, relying only on state funds afterward. "It is in the best interest of Tennesseans for the State to assume direct financial and managerial response for these services," the email read.

When asked for comment by NBC News, a spokesperson for the Department of Health said that "the letter speaks for itself."


An estimated 20,000 people in Tennessee are living with HIV, though not all would be affected by the cuts. There was no further guidance on how the state planned to fund such programs on its own.

The move stunned HIV experts.

"I can't understand why the state would give back funds targeted toward health care," said Diane Duke, president and chief executive officer of Friends for Life, a Memphis group that provides services to people living with HIV. Friends for Life was among the groups that received notice from the state. "It's outrageous," she said.

Shelby County, where Memphis is located, is among the nation's counties with the highest rates of HIV and AIDS. In 2020, 819 per 100,000 Shelby County residents had HIV, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

And those were only the people who'd received an official diagnosis.

"A lot of people are walking around with HIV, and they don't even realize it," Duke said. Providing testing for the virus is a major part of the work Friends for Life carries out. "Once somebody has tested positive, we are able to get them into care immediately," she said.

Greg Millett, director of public policy for the nonprofit group amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, called the decision "devastating." He is concerned that Tennessee health officials are setting a dangerous precedent.

"If other states follow suit," Millett said, "we're going to be in trouble."

Millet said that the CDC provides Tennessee as much as $10 million in HIV funding. It remains unclear how much of that money will be turned away.

He said he worries that the state's directive will lead to discrimination against marginalized groups most at risk for HIV.

"The overwhelming majority of new HIV cases are among gay and bisexual men, transgender populations, heterosexual women, as well as people who inject drugs," he said.

"We have the tools needed to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic in terms of prevention and care," Millett said. "If Tennessee is not using those tools, not using CDC funding and not focusing on the groups most at risk for HIV, we have the possibility of an outbreak."

The CDC provides millions of dollars each year to states for HIV testing kits, condoms and medications to prevent infection, called PrEP.

In a statement provided to NBC News on Friday, the CDC said that it was unaware that Tennessee — or any other state — planned to stop accepting the grant money.

"We have not received any official notification from the Tennessee Department of Health withdrawing from CDC's HIV prevention funding," the CDC said. Without such notice, the CDC will automatically continue payments to the state.

The federal agency also said that it would "certainly be concerned if the services people in Tennessee need to stay healthy were interrupted or if public health capacity to respond to HIV outbreaks and bring an end to this epidemic were hindered."

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This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

Supreme Court changes fuel moves to protect abortion access
By DAVID CRARY

This Oct. 23, 2020, photo provided by Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas shows the new Planned Parenthood health center in Lubbock, Texas. (Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas via The AP)


A vast swath of West Texas has been without an abortion clinic for more than six years. Planned Parenthood plans to change that with a health center it opened recently in Lubbock.

It’s a vivid example of how abortion-rights groups are striving to preserve nationwide access to the procedure even as a reconfigured Supreme Court — with the addition of conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett — may be open to new restrictions.

Planned Parenthood has made recent moves to serve more women in Missouri and Kentucky, and other groups are preparing to help women in other Republican-controlled states access abortion if bans are imposed.


“Abortion access in these states now faces its gravest ever threat,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, Planned Parenthood’s president. She said the new health center in Lubbock “is an example of our commitment to our patients to meet them where they are.”

The clinic opened on Oct. 23 in a one-story building that had been a medical office and was renovated after Planned Parenthood purchased it. To avoid protests and boycotts that have beset some previous expansion efforts, Planned Parenthood kept details, including the clinic’s location, secret until the opening was announced.

Planned Parenthood says the health center will start providing abortions — via surgery and medication — sometime next year. Meanwhile, it is offering other services, including cancer screenings, birth control and testing for sexually transmitted infections.

Planned Parenthood closed its previous clinic in Lubbock, a city of 255,000 people, in 2013 after the Texas Legislature slashed funding for family planning services and imposed tough restrictions on abortion clinics.

That law led to the closure of more than half the state’s 41 abortion clinics before the Supreme Court struck down key provisions in 2016. There were no clinics left providing abortion in a region of more than 1 million people stretching from Amarillo in the Texas Panhandle south to Lubbock and the oil patch cities of Odessa and Midland.

Women in Lubbock faced a 310-mile (500-kilometer) drive to the nearest abortion clinic in Fort Worth.

Anti-abortion activists have been mobilizing to prevent the return of abortion services to Lubbock — and are not giving up even with the new clinic’s opening.

“Lubbock must not surrender to the abortion industry,” said Kimberlyn Schwartz, a West Texas native who attended Texas Tech University in Lubbock and is now communications director for Texas Right to Life.

Her organization has backed a petition drive trying to persuade the City Council to pass an ordinance declaring Lubbock a “sanctuary city for the unborn.” Abortion opponents hope that designation would lead to either enforcement efforts or lawsuits seeking to block abortion services.

Thus far, the City Council has declined to adopt the ordinance, but activists say they have enough signatures to place it on the ballot in a local referendum.

Texas is one of several red states where Planned Parenthood has sought to expand abortion access. Earlier this year, its health center in Louisville, Kentucky, began providing abortions after obtaining a license from the newly installed administration of Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear.

For the previous four years, anti-abortion Republican Gov. Matt Bevin’s administration refused to issue a license. The change doubled the number of abortion providers in Kentucky from one to two.

Dr. Kara Cadwallader, Planned Parenthood’s chief medical officer for Kentucky and Indiana, said the resumption of abortion services in Louisville had gone smoothly. Anti-abortion protesters routinely appear outside the building, she said, but they were a steady presence even when the center did not provide abortions.

She and her colleagues are bracing for a new wave of anti-abortion legislation from Kentucky’s Legislature, where the GOP holds enough seats to override possible vetoes from Beshear.

“We’ll once again be under siege,” Cadwallader said.

In October 2019, Planned Parenthood’s affiliate in St. Louis opened a large new health center in Fairview Heights, Illinois — about 17 miles (27 kilometers) from its St. Louis clinic. Illinois, where Democrats hold power, has not sought to curtail abortion, and the clinic was intended to provide an extra option for women from Missouri and other nearby Republican-governed states with multiple restrictions.

Missouri, for example, bars the use of telemedicine for abortion services, a policy that has sharply limited the number of medication abortions. Dr. Colleen McNicholas, Planned Parenthood’s chief medical officer for reproductive health services in the St. Louis region, has made clear that medication abortion by telemedicine is available in Illinois.

The Rev. Katherine Ragsdale, who represents many independent abortion providers as president of the National Abortion Federation, said one priority for her members is to make medication abortion more widely available. She also anticipates that it will become more difficult for women to obtain late-term abortions, increasing the need for funding programs that can help pay for travel to clinics that offer those procedures.

Laurie Bertram Roberts is executive director of one such program, the Alabama-based Yellowhammer Fund. She anticipates an increase in the number of low- and middle-income women who will need significant financial help — sometimes topping $10,000 — to travel to distant clinics if access is curtailed in Alabama.

Bertram Roberts also expects more women to resort to do-it-yourself abortions, now that it’s increasingly possible to receive abortion pill drugs by mail.

“We’re talking about a huge amount of people who can possibly do stuff at home safely,” she said. “We’re not going back to the days of back-alley abortions.”

Volunteers Are Coming Out In Droves To Support Planned Parenthood After Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Death

Planned Parenthood and other reproductive rights groups are mobilizing droves of new volunteers and running TV ads to elect Democrats after Ginsburg’s death.

Ema O'ConnorBuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on September 22, 2020

Alex Edelman / Getty Images
A makeshift memorial for late justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg near the steps of the Supreme Court on September 21.

On Friday evening, just after the news of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death hit headlines, reproductive rights activists were already on Zoom calls and group chats across the country, springing into action.

"It was an all-hands-on-deck response within minutes of the news breaking,” a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Votes, Planned Parenthood’s super PAC, told BuzzFeed News Monday. “We took time to — and continue to — pay our respects to her legacy, but now we need to turn and fight any attempts by the Senate to fill the seat before the inauguration."

Ginsburg was a champion of reproductive and abortion rights during her time on the court, repeatedly ruling in support of expanding access to abortion and contraception and voicing opposition to efforts to curb that right.

Throughout President Donald Trump’s campaign and presidency, he has vowed to appoint anti-abortion rights justices to the Supreme Court. When he filled two seats, creating a 5–4 conservative majority, many began to see Ginsburg as the last hope for the survival of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

Even before Ginsburg's death, it was already crunch time for staff at Planned Parenthood Votes, UltraViolet, and Supermajority — three political organizations that fight for abortion rights and access through electoral politics; one of the most significant elections in the history of their movement is just six weeks away, on Nov. 3.

But Ginsburg’s death added fuel to the fire.

In the days following the news, Planned Parenthood Votes organized a new six-figure ad campaign, which launched Tuesday afternoon in Arizona, Florida, and Michigan, featuring a montage of black-and-white pictures of Ginsburg looking regal, contrasted against videos of Trump and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh screaming angrily, telling viewers that Trump “wants to replace [Ginsburg] against her dying wish.” Supermajority started organizing a celebrity-studded “massive woman-to-woman voter mobilization event” focused on Ginsburg's legacy, featuring Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, writer Gloria Steinem, and actors Jane Fonda and Eva Longoria, among many others.

Planned Parenthood Votes and UltraViolet wrote new scripts for their phone and text banking (volunteer drives in which supporters call and text friends and strangers, encouraging them to vote or get involved in organizing efforts) centered around Ginsburg and the vacancy she left on the Supreme Court. Their volunteers are now prepared to tell their millions of supporters to “hold their senators’ feet to the fire” to make sure senators who are vulnerable this election know that their decision on whether to vote for a Supreme Court nominee before Nov. 3 could cost them their jobs.

Following Ginsburg’s death, Planned Parenthood saw a massive spike in donations and volunteers to help get out the vote across the country. “Planned Parenthood” and “Roe v Wade” began trending on Twitter, as people turned to social media to encourage others to do the same. The website for Planned Parenthood’s political arm saw a 500% increase in week-to-week traffic from the previous Saturday, the organization’s spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. Supermajority and Planned Parenthood Vote’s online supporter briefing in reaction to the news about Ginsburg saw 60,000 people tune in, a shockingly high turnout for a Sunday night.

“We've seen an incredible increase in enthusiasm from our organizers and through our outreach to voters,” the Planned Parenthood Votes spokesperson said. “We're seeing a dramatic increase in new volunteers, an increase in response rates to our phone banks, and just an overwhelming sense of people wanting to get involved."

Carina Coestad, a 20-year-old college student at Syracuse University in New York who regularly donates to Planned Parenthood, told BuzzFeed News Saturday that she started hearing from friends “immediately,” asking her how they could help. “I posted about RBG to my Instagram story, and I got like 20 messages immediately, some from friends who have never done anything political before, asking to phone bank and volunteer,” she said.

Coestad has been volunteering for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, and over the weekend participated in a phone bank in which she texted hundreds of people to discuss her support of Planned Parenthood and Biden’s campaign in the wake of Ginsburg’s death.

In Maine, where Republican Sen. Susan Collins faces a serious challenge from Democrat Sara Gideon this year, Planned Parenthood Votes has also seen a large increase in interest. Normally Maine’s volunteers are only signed up for one or two shifts a week for phone banking and other efforts, the spokesperson said. This week, every hour is booked.

“It makes sense. It’s natural that people would immediately be concerned about their access to basic health care like IUDs and birth control, and that would motivate them to act,” Sonja Spoo, director of reproductive rights campaigns at UltraViolet, told BuzzFeed News Sunday. “This is the fever dream of the anti-choice movement, to have the pick at the Supreme Court that Trump promised to deliver for them.”

Efforts to block a vote on a Supreme Court nomination before the election, however, are seeming more and more futile. In order to prevent a majority of the Senate voting on the nominee, four Republicans would have to join the Democrats in dissent. Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine said that they would vote against the nomination, and advocates were hoping that Sen. Mitt Romney, who voted to impeach Trump on one count earlier this year, would join them.

On Tuesday morning, however, Romney released a statement saying he would support voting to replace Ginsburg on the court. Nearly every other Republican senator, including those who face difficult reelections this year, have agreed. Trump said Tuesday that he would announce his nominee as soon as Saturday.

Even if Planned Parenthood and the Democrats lose the battle to block the nomination, the spokesperson said, the fight won’t be over. The group signed up nearly a thousand people nationally to phone bank on Thursday, triple the amount of volunteers they normally recruit. And their focus, beyond Ginsburg’s seat, is making sure that Democrats win the Senate and the White House in November.

"Whatever happens with this appointment, it's critical that we flip the Senate majority and elect a president that isn't going to continue to appoint justices at the appellate level and district courts with justices who are against abortion access,” the spokesperson said. “No matter what happens, the fight remains."


Ema O'Connor is a political reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.