AUSTIN, Texas, January 20, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — A federal judge has blocked Texas from defunding Planned Parenthood.
U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks issued an injunction yesterday preventing the Republican-controlled state from cutting Planned Parenthood’s Medicare funding — a decision that would have taken effect January 21.
Sparks’s injunction freezes the defunding decision until February 21, but he is expected to release a ruling before then.
The state's decision to cut funding is based on the undercover videos released by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) which Texas health officials contend provide evidence that Planned Parenthood violated state and federal laws.
Planned Parenthood fought the decision by reviving a lawsuit against Texas and the Medicaid defunding plan.
Sparks has been hearing testimony on the highly political case since Tuesday.
He said he issued the injunction to give him time to consider the “mountain of evidence” which includes thousands of pages of documents, as well as the CMP videos.
The judge stated at the outset of the three-day hearing that the videos were “baloney” when it came to the merits of the case, according to Associated Press.
Sparks said he wanted to hear what Medicaid services Planned Parenthood provided and how many of its centers would be affected.
He is the same judge who has temporarily blocked the new Texas ruling that hospitals or other medical centers and abortion facilities must bury or cremate the bodies of aborted babies must be buried or cremated.
Sparks blocked that ruling until a January 27 hearing, calling it “political” and expressing concern it could impede abortion access.
During this week’s hearing, Planned Parenthood claimed none of the money it received from Medicaid went for abortions, Reuters reported.
It also claimed the CMP videos were heavily edited and misleading.
The state argued that medical centers other than Planned Parenthood could provide Medicaid patients similar services.
Texas health officials sent a final legal notice to Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast in late December, informing the abortion giant it would be cutting its Medicare funding, and citing as among the causes misconduct and violations of acceptable medical standards.
Stuart Bowen, inspector general for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, wrote the videos revealed Planned Parenthood’s history of “‘deviating from accepted standards” to procure tissue samples for researchers and a “willingness to charge more than the costs incurred for procuring fetal tissue,” along with other violations.
One of the videos from CMP showed a Texas Planned Parenthood employee stating abortionists are willing to alter the abortion process to harvest the body parts that researchers are after or deliver a child’s body essentially intact.
Federal law prohibits the sale of human organs for “valuable consideration.”
“Your misconduct is directly related to whether you are qualified to provide medical services in a professionally competent, safe, legal and ethical manner,” Bowen stated in the letter.
“Your actions violate generally accepted medical standards, as reflected in state and federal law, and are Medicaid program violations that justify termination.”
Planned Parenthood receives about $4.2 million in Medicaid funding, according to the state’s Health and Human Services Commission.
That’s disbursed to 34 centers, which Planned Parenthood says see 120,000 clients, 11,000 of whom are on Medicaid.
Last year, a Texas grand jury called to investigate Planned Parenthood based on the CMP videos instead indicted CMP’s David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt on felony charges, which were later dropped.