Earlier this month, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court ruling and upheld a 2016 Ohio law that rerouted approximately $1.3 million in state funding from abortion facilities (like Planned Parenthood) to Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs). As Live Action News previously reported, “… Planned Parenthood… successfully managed to get an injunction blocking the law, with U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett ruling that stripping the abortion giant of its taxpayer funding would cause ‘irreparable injury.'” The Sixth Circuit disagreed, with Judge Jeffrey Sutton writing, “Private organizations do not have a constitutional right to obtain governmental funding to support their activities. The state… has no obligation to pay for a woman’s abortion. Case after case establishes that a government may refuse to subsidize abortion services.”
Now, Ohio has followed through with its original plan and has defunded Planned Parenthood and other abortion organizations in the state. The Associated Press reports that the Ohio Department of Health “notified recipients and contractors Thursday that it will end that funding within a month to comply with the law, unless the court delays the effect of its ruling as Planned Parenthood requested.”
READ: Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals: Planned Parenthood videos aren’t deceptive, Texas can defund
While Planned Parenthood continues to claim that it is one of the most important healthcare providers for women in the United States, the facts and figures prove otherwise. In truth, its patient load has decreased significantly over the past decade (700,000 patients lost since 2006), and its legitimate health care services (like cancer screenings) continue to plummet. In addition, as abortions nationally continue to drop, Planned Parenthood’s abortion numbers have increased year over year — it currently holds 35% of the national market share for abortions (it committed more than 330,000, according to the most recent annual report). The abortion corporation has also been caught in numerous overbilling and fraud scandals, has been caught aiding and abetting sex traffickers and abusers, has lied to women about abortion risks and fetal development, and has been secretly videotaped revealing how its employees alter abortion procedures to obtain the most intact organs from aborted children for resale to third parties.
Taxpayers overwhelmingly do not support paying for abortions and want more restrictions on abortion. In 2017, President Trump signed a bill allowing states to defund abortion organizations like Planned Parenthood. In addition, a new Title X family planning rule change spells out that there must be a “clear financial and physical separation between Title X funded projects and programs or facilities where abortion is a method of family planning,” which means that unless Planned Parenthood complies with the changes, it stands to lose $60 million in federal funding.
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