Texas
A federal appeals court on Monday upheld the authority of states to not fund abortion providers through Medicaid.
A majority opinion of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, issued Nov. 23, ruled that abortion providers and their customers could not challenge Texas’ decision to withhold Medicaid funds from Planned Parenthood.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton praised the decision in a statement.
“Undercover video plainly showed Planned Parenthood admitting to morally bankrupt and unlawful conduct, including violations of federal law by manipulating the timing and methods of abortions to obtain fetal tissue for their own research,” Paxton stated.
Texas in 2015 moved to defund Planned Parenthood, after undercover videos alleged that officials were unlawfully profiting from the sale of aborted fetal tissue.
The state’s determination of “qualified” Medicaid providers is between the state and the provider, the court ruled on Monday.
The case dates back to 2015, when citizen journalists with the group Center for Medical Progress published undercover videos of conversations with Planned Parenthood officials. In the conversations, where the Center members posed as fetal tissue harvesters, the videos appeared to show Planned Parenthood officials discussing the unlawful sale of fetal tissue for profit.
The above comes from a Nov. 24 story on the site of Catholic News Agency.
Tennessee
A federal appeals court on Friday allowed a Tennessee ban on some abortions to go into effect.
A three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that a part of the state’s abortion law can go into effect, a “reason ban” that bars discrimination abortions.
Tennessee in July enacted a law with several restrictions on abortion, including a “heartbeat ban” on abortions conducted as early as six weeks into pregnancy, and bans on abortions at other stages in pregnancy should the “heartbeat” ban be struck down by a court.
The law also banned doctors from performing abortions if they knew the mother was seeking the abortion “because of” the sex, race, or Down syndrome diagnosis of her baby—a “reason ban,” in Section 217 of the law.
Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and the ACLU challenged the law in court. In July, a federal district court halted the law from going into effect.
The Sixth Circuit on Friday put a stay on the lower court’s ruling with respect to Section 217, allowing that part of the law to go into effect….
The above comes from a Nov. 23 story on the site of Catholic News Agency.
Those willing to kill babies, or defend those who do, are capable of literally anything. Without question, they are demonically inspired.
All this comes to nothing. A mother can simply deny she is acting subject to provisions of 217, and who is to challenge her? On what basis? If there is any hassle she can always go to the next state over, with Biden’s blessing.