LITTLE ROCK, AR, December 5, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – An appellate court upheld Arkansas’ defunding Planned Parenthood of Medicaid funds last week, allowing it to go into effect.
After the state Department of Human Services (DHS) announced it had taken the nation's largest, most lucrative abortion conglomerate off its approved list of Medicaid providers, a legal battle ensued.
Last week, the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Arkansas may indeed decide not to give Planned Parenthood Medicaid funds.
Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson cut off Planned Parenthood from Medicaid tax funds in 2015, but a judge imposed a preliminary injunction forcing the state to fund the abortion giant. In August, a panel of Eighth Circuit judges lifted the injunction, and recently the full court said it would not revisit that lifting.
The issue of diverting state funds away from Planned Parenthood and to women's health facilities that do not commit abortions has divided the nation's justice system. Some courts have defended states' rights to choose the health entities to which they give money, while others have ruled states must specifically funnel Medicaid payoffs to Planned Parenthood businesses.
Gov. Hutchinson's move to defund Planned Parenthood came in response to undercover videos exposing illegal activities of the abortion provider. In 2015, Center for Medical Progress (CMP) investigators secretly recorded abortion industry meetings to expose possible criminal activity.
The CMP undercover videos showed Planned Parenthood officials eager to make illegal profits off aborted baby parts and talking about illegally modifying abortion procedures to obtain “intact” babies for sale to pay for luxury cars for Planned Parenthood staff.
A firestorm of controversy erupted across the nation. Both houses of the U.S. Congress began hearings and many states began making attempts to defund Planned Parenthood of tax dollars.