Planned Parenthood has voluntarily dismissed its own lawsuit against the state of Texas regarding the state’s decision to defund the abortion giant from Medicaid. Planned Parenthood had been receiving $3.1 million a year in Texas Medicaid funding, according to Attorney General Ken Paxton, but undercover videos from the Center for Medical Progress’s investigation into the trafficking of aborted body parts played a role in the state’s desire to defund.
“VICTORY,” said CMP founder David Daleiden on Twitter. “This morning, @PPGulfCoast DISMISSED their federal lawsuit against their disqualification from Texas Medicaid due to their wrongdoing found on my undercover videos. Planned Parenthood SURRENDERED today because their sale of baby body parts is indefensible.”
In December 2016, Texas prohibited state Medicaid funds from going to Planned Parenthood locations in the state that take part in abortion, but in 2017, a federal judge blocked the state’s defunding efforts. Then in 2019, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that ruling, stating that Texas’ Health and Human Services Commission can defund Planned Parenthood and remove it from the Medicaid program.
In January 2020, the Trump Administration approved federal funding for the Healthy Texas Women program, which offers health care and family planning services to thousands of low-income women in the state, marking the first time federal Medicaid funding had been given to a program that excludes abortion businesses including Planned Parenthood. The program had actually lost funding in 2011 when it first excluded Planned Parenthood due to its commitment to abortion. Under this program, Texas was provided with $350 million over five years to assist 200,000 clients with non-abortion-related family planning.
Then, on February 3, 2021, the day before the Texas Medicaid rule removing Planned Parenthood from funding was set to go into effect, Planned Parenthood filed a new lawsuit alleging that Medicaid patients needed more than the allotted 30 days to find a new health care provider. A federal judge then blocked the rule once again.
According to a statement from AG Paxton, the decision to remove Planned Parenthood from Texas’ Medicaid program was “for the video footage of actions that ‘violate generally accepted medical standards,’ and for making false statements to law enforcement.”
READ: Yes, cutting abortion businesses from Texas’ Medicaid program will save lives
CMP’s undercover videos filmed inside Planned Parenthood affiliates showed top executives from the abortion organization discussing the sales of fetal body parts. One such video was taken inside Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast in Texas, in which a Planned Parenthood employee stated that making it appear as though the abortion corporation doesn’t profit from the sales of aborted children’s bodies was “just a matter of line items.” Another video shows Amna Dermish of Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas discussing how she effectively harvests fetal organs during abortions.
Planned Parenthood sued CMP over the videos, alleging that the investigators trespassed and recorded illegally, but have never sued for defamation, meaning Planned Parenthood has not argued legally that CMP altered the videos. In court, Planned Parenthood attorneys even admitted that the videos were accurate and the employees’ words were truthfully depicted. The employees themselves later admitted under oath to selling the body parts. In its ruling, the Fifth Circuit stated that the CMP videos were not deceptively edited.
While it may appear that Planned Parenthood has given up, the abortion corporation has reason to be hopeful that it will begin receiving federal Medicaid funds for abortions under the Biden-Harris Administration, which wants to do away with the Hyde Amendment which currently prevents federal Medicaid funds from directly paying for most abortions. The Hyde Amendment is a rider that has been added to the House appropriations bill every year since it was first passed in 1976. Every president since then has supported it until now, and it is credited with saving at least 2.4 million lives from abortion.
Fifty-seven percent of Americans support the Hyde Amendment, and up until his 2020 bid for the presidency, President Joe Biden was among them. Under pressure from the abortion lobby during his presidential campaign, Biden chose to change his position and voiced support for repealing the Hyde Amendment.
Abortion advocates on Capitol Hill and in the White House are working to undo Hyde, and it possible that Planned Parenthood may be dropping its Texas lawsuit due to confidence that these efforts in D.C. will be successful.
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