A federal judge who was once employed by Planned Parenthood recused himself from hearing a case that could shut down his former employer's Cincinnati office – but only after saying their relationship posed no conflict of interest and that pro-lifers only objected to his hearing the case based on misguided emotionalism.
“Although lawyers and judges recognize that an association of more than 25 years ago does not create a conflict of interest, citizens are likely to view that question more viscerally,” said U.S. District Judge Timothy Black on Saturday. “Sometimes, the perception is as important as the reality.”
Black had been tapped to rule on a lawsuit Planned Parenthood filed last Monday against an Ohio law requiring abortionists to have admitting privileges at a private hospital within 30 miles.
But the Obama appointee revealed to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2010 that he served as president of Planned Parenthood's local chapter, the Planned Parenthood Association of Cincinnati, in 1988 and its director from 1986-1989.
Acting as the group's legal counsel in 1986, Black told the Associated Press that sidewalk counselors should be “fined substantially and often” to squelch their free speech activity outside abortion facilities.
''I believe if the protesters are fined substantially and often, and those fines are collected, it will help dissuade them,” Black said. “Fine after fine after fine makes it tougher for them.”
At the same time as his stint with Planned Parenthood, he served on the board of a group called “Pro-Kids Inc.,” a foster care advocacy group that seeks “to break the vicious cycle of child abuse and neglect.”
On Saturday, Black stepped away from the case with apparent reluctance, saying, “to avoid even an appearance of impropriety, I recuse myself as the judge randomly assigned to this case and return it to the Clerk of Court for re-assignment to another District Judge.”
Despite his association with the nation's largest abortion provider, Black has not recused himself from previous lawsuits taking on pro-life organizations. In 2011, he allowed a former Democratic Congressman to sue the Susan B. Anthony List before eventually reversing himself two years later.
The new case, Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region v. Hodges, has been reassigned to U.S. District Judge Michael R. Barrett, a 2006 appointee by President George W. Bush.
The new judicial assignment gave the area's pro-life leadership hope that justice might prevail.
“We can only hope after all this notoriety that the law requiring abortion ambulatory surgical facilities to have a transfer agreement with a private-only hospital will be judged on its merits,” said Paula Westwood, the executive director of Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati. “At the very least we can expect a judge with no ties to Planned Parenthood to hear the case.”
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Planned Parenthood wants the judiciary to rule that the Ohio law is invalid and restore its transfer agreement with the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, which was annulled when Governor John Kasich signed the law.
The admitting privileges requirement has shut down abortion facilities nationwide, as well as within the Buckeye State. Late-term abortionist Martin Haskell's Lebanon Road Surgery Center in the Cincinnati suburb of Sharonville closed its doors as a result of the law.
If the law is upheld and Planned Parenthood Haskell's lead, the Cincinnati 2.2 million-person metro area would become the largest in the nation to be abortion-free.
