{"id":198342,"date":"2019-03-12T17:43:45","date_gmt":"2019-03-12T22:43:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=198342"},"modified":"2019-03-12T17:43:45","modified_gmt":"2019-03-12T22:43:45","slug":"court-rules-ohio-defund-planned-parenthood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/court-rules-ohio-defund-planned-parenthood\/","title":{"rendered":"VICTORY: Court rules that Ohio can defund Planned Parenthood"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals just decided in a split ruling to uphold an Ohio law<\/a> preventing state money from being directed towards abortion facilities, effectively clearing the way for the state to finally, after years of legal fighting, defund Planned Parenthood<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2016, Ohio passed a law defunding Planned Parenthood<\/a> and other abortion facilities, and redirecting approximately $1.3 million to federally qualified health centers (FQHCs), health departments, and other non-abortion health providers. While most Americans do not want taxpayer dollars funding abortion<\/a>, Planned Parenthood still sued, and successfully managed to get an injunction blocking the law<\/a>, with U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett ruling that stripping the abortion giant of its taxpayer funding would cause “irreparable injury.”<\/p>\n

Attorneys for the state have argued, however, that Planned Parenthood has no right to mandate how state officials decide how to spend their own money. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals also ruled that while there is a constitutional right to abortion, there is no constitutional right for an entity to commit<\/em> abortions, or receive taxpayer funding for it. \u201cPrivate organizations do not have a constitutional right to obtain governmental funding to support their activities,\u201d Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote. \u201cThe state also may choose not to subsidize constitutionally protected activities. Just as it has no obligation to provide a platform for an individual\u2019s free speech, say a Speaker\u2019s Corner in downtown Columbus, it has no obligation to pay for a woman\u2019s abortion. Case after case establishes that a government may refuse to subsidize abortion services.\u201d<\/p>\n