BIRMINGHAM, Alabama, September 22, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – Planned Parenthood appealed to a federal judge Tuesday to put a halt to defunding of its Alabama abortion facilities.
Gov. Robert Bentley informed Planned Parenthood Southeast Inc. August 6 that its agreement with the Alabama Medicaid Agency would be terminated after 15 days, a result of the ongoing national human body part trafficking scandal embroiling the abortion giant.
“The deplorable practices at Planned Parenthood have been exposed to Americans, and I have decided to stop any association with the organization in Alabama,” Bentley said at the time. “As a doctor and Alabama's Governor, the issue of human life, from conception to birth and beyond, is extremely important to me. I respect human life, and I do not want Alabama to be associated with an organization that does not.”
It was the third state to do so after the videos surfaced this past summer exposing executives from the nation's largest abortion business bartering for fetal remains and admitting to committing illegal partial-birth abortions to and targeting procedures in general to best benefit harvesting of remains from children aborted at its facilities for sale.
Following Bentley's move, the ACLU of Alabama sued the state August 28 in U.S. District Court on behalf of Planned Parenthood, claiming Bentley broke the law by acting to take funds away from Planned Parenthood.
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“Today Planned Parenthood and the ACLU filed a complaint in a federal district court arguing Alabama Governor Robert Bentley's illegal effort to block patients from accessing care through Medicaid at Planned Parenthood Southeast is driven by a long record of hostility to reproductive health care providers,” the ACLU said in a statement.
The ACLU also vowed to file a subsequent injunction to “protect the ability of Alabama women on Medicaid to access birth control, lifesaving cancer screenings, and other preventive health services, at Planned Parenthood's health centers in Alabama.”
While Planned Parenthood had 60 days to file a request for the fair hearing with the Alabama Medicaid Agency, it was in court this morning petitioning to prevent Bentley from making good on his intent to end the state's association with the abortion chain.
One of Planned Parenthood's attorneys alleged that the undercover videos are “patently false,” a report from the Star Tribune said, and do not involve Alabama's two Planned Parenthood abortion facilities.
Planned Parenthood's history in Alabama includes instances of lawbreaking and shoddy practice prior to the abortion chain being exposed for trafficking fetal remains at the national level.
Last November, the Alabama Department of Public Health caught Planned Parenthood Mobile concealing the fact that a 14-year-old girl, who already had two children, had two abortions without reporting the statutory rapes or documenting parental consent, a violation of Alabama law.
The Birmingham Planned Parenthood was sued in 2012 for negligence for a botched abortion after the abortionist reportedly failed to diagnose a client's tubal pregnancy, which ruptured 25 days later, necessitating emergency surgery and leaving her infertile.
That abortion occurred while the clinic was on probation for committing abortions on underage teens without parental consent.
U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson said in court this morning that one possible solution in the current case would be for the State of Alabama to identify the “reason” for ending the payments, which would prompt an appeal process.
The Obama administration has also taken steps to threaten and punish states for defunding Planned Parenthood, which spent millions of dollars to re-elect him in 2012.
