{"id":170796,"date":"2017-08-16T17:28:20","date_gmt":"2017-08-16T21:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=170796"},"modified":"2017-08-16T22:13:26","modified_gmt":"2017-08-17T02:13:26","slug":"appeals-court-arkansas-defund-planned-parenthood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/appeals-court-arkansas-defund-planned-parenthood\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal appeals court rules Arkansas can defund Planned Parenthood"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Today, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined<\/a> that the state of Arkansas is allowed to end its contract with Planned Parenthood<\/a> as a Medicaid provider.<\/p>\n

In 2015, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson chose to defund Planned Parenthood in response to the Center for Medical Progress’s undercover videos<\/a> featuring high-level Planned Parenthood employees describing the organization’s participation in the harvesting and trafficking of aborted<\/a> fetal body parts.<\/p>\n

\"www.AbortionProcedures.com<\/a><\/p>\n

As Live Action News’ Danny David reported<\/a> in 2016, “In January, a federal judge granted Planned Parenthood\u2019s motion for class-action status in its lawsuit challenging Hutchinson\u2019s decision.” Three women signed on with Planned Parenthood to bring the suit. But according to Politico<\/a>, the appeals court ruled, in a 2-1 decision, that “the patients do not have the right to challenge the state’s Medicaid contract decision.”<\/p>\n

The AP notes<\/a>, “U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker initially ordered the state to continue the payments to three patients who had sued over the move and later expanded that order to anyone who seeks or wants to obtain services from the organization\u2019s health centers in Arkansas.”<\/p>\n

But the AP wasn’t quite accurate in claiming that “[n]one of the money” ($51,000) received by Planned Parenthood in the fiscal year prior to the decision to defund “paid for abortions.” As Live Action News has shown<\/a>, the money given to abortion facilities like Planned Parenthood may not directly<\/em> pay for abortions, but that money pays for the center’s daily operations, which includes funding for the physicians committing abortions under the same roof as other services. In other words, the money is fungible:<\/p>\n