The US Supreme Court is declining to hear Alliance Defending Freedom and New Hampshire Right to Life’s case demanding the release of documents pertaining to an Obama Administration grant to Planned Parenthood of Northern New England.
As Live Action News has covered, the petitioners seek documents regarding a $1 million non-competitive grant to provide Title X family planning services, in defiance of the state’s 2011 decision to deny the abortion giant’s affiliate such funding over suspicion that Planned Parenthood was directing the money toward abortion services.
The Supreme Court did not state a reason for rejecting the case, but Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia dissented, arguing intervention was warranted to resolve ambiguity over the scope of the federal Freedom of Information Act.
Thomas also criticized lower courts for imposing “varying versions of a convoluted test that rests on judicial speculation about whether disclosure will cause competitive harm” and “perpetuat[ing] an unsupported interpretation of an important federal statute [which] further muddies an already amorphous test.”
In response to the announcement, ADF-allied attorney Michael Tierney said that “Americans deserve to know if their tax money is being funneled to groups that are misusing it […] HHS is withholding documents that are critical in evaluating apparently illegal funding that the administration provided to the abortion giant despite New Hampshire’s grave concerns and without following normal protocols.”
