For the second time, the Missouri Supreme Court has sided with Planned Parenthood, ruling that the state can’t prohibit taxpayer funding from going to the abortion corporation.
The state’s 2022 budget bill aimed to stop Planned Parenthood and its affiliates from receiving funds through the state Medicaid program by including a line that said it would spend $0 for any Medicaid-covered services if the provider also commits abortions or is affiliated with an abortion business. A trial judge blocked this provision of the bill, ruling that it violated the state constitution’s requirement that legislation contain a single subject and that the bill infringed on equal protection rights. The state Supreme Court said AG Andrew Bailey’s office did not appeal the equal protection claim and, therefore, it must stand. It also said there was no reason to address the single-subject claim.
According to Fox 2, this was not Missouri legislators’ first attempt to prevent tax dollars from funding Planned Parenthood. In 2020, the Missouri Supreme Court blocked language in that year’s budget bill that excluded abortionists and abortion business affiliates from receiving Medicaid reimbursements.
READ: Planned Parenthood has been cited for Medicaid fraud… so why is it still getting taxpayer funding?
Shortly after the 2022 budget provision attempted to cease the funding, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and Missouri was able to enact a law protecting preborn children from abortion except in cases to save the mother’s life — though induced abortion, in which a child is deliberately killed, is never medically necessary. Due to this law, Planned Parenthood in Missouri no longer commits abortions, referring instead to other Planned Parenthood centers.
Still, Planned Parenthood staffers were recently caught on camera by Project Veritas, displaying a willingness to help a man traffic a 13-year-old across the state border into Kansas for an abortion without her parents’ knowledge.
Following the release of that video, Missouri Senator Mary Elizabeth Coleman called for the prosecution of Planned Parenthood, and she, along with Senator Nick Schroer, filed legislation that would prevent “any abortion facility or any affiliate or associate thereof” from being eligible to receive Medicaid through the state’s MO HealthNet.
“Our tax dollars should not be going to those types of institutions, even if it’s a penny,” Schroer said.
