Texas Will Fully Defund Planned Parenthood Abortion Business Tomorrow

Starting Tuesday, the nation’s largest abortion chain, Planned Parenthood, will not be taking tax dollars from Texas anymore.

Texas leaders have been trying to defund Planned Parenthood from the state Medicaid program for years, and, in November, they won a victory in court.

Now their efforts finally are coming to fruition.

Medicaid is the largest stream of taxpayer funding to Planned Parenthood, and, in Texas, that funding will be cut off starting Tuesday, Breitbart reports.

Jennifer Allmon, executive director of the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops, celebrated the news. She said Texans have much better options for health care than abortion groups.

“There are hundreds of providers throughout the state of Texas willing to serve poor women with authentic healthcare services that are not also peddling abortion,” Allmon said. “The Texas Pregnancy Care Network has a list of such providers throughout the state and if these providers do not accept Medicaid, they can make referrals to life-affirming Medicaid providers who can offer genuine healthcare to women in need.”

Planned Parenthood facilities in Texas receive about $3.1 million in taxpayer funding from Medicaid annually, according to the East Texas Review. The abortion chain estimates it sees about 8,000 Texans every year through the program, according to the Tribune.

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The legal battle between Texas and Planned Parenthood over Medicaid funds went on for about five years. In November, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the state, agreeing that Texas can kick out Planned Parenthood from the program for violating state policies.

According to Texas Right to Life: “Medicaid providers in Texas are required to follow Texas Medicaid policies and federal and state law. The Texas Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found Planned Parenthood violated federal regulations by altering abortion procedures to harvest baby body parts. Thus, the OIG terminated Planned Parenthood’s provider contract.”

In early January, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission informed the abortion chain of the Feb. 3 cutoff date in a letter. The commission also refused Planned Parenthood’s request to delay implementation.

Planned Parenthood leaders argued that the change will hurt Texans’ access to health care, but Planned Parenthood does not provide much basic health care. Its “core mission” is aborting unborn babies. And its own annual reports show that the few actual health services that it does provide, such as birth control, cancer screenings and sterilizations, have been dropping steadily in recent years.

Meanwhile, community health centers outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities by 20 to one across the country and provide comprehensive health care, including dozens of vital services that the abortion chain does not.

While Medicaid funds do not pay for abortions directly (Planned Parenthood is lobbying lawmakers to change that), they do indirectly fund Planned Parenthood’s abortion business. According to its most recently annual report, it received $616.8 million in government funding nationally, approximately 90 percent of which came from Medicaid.

A number of states tried to defund Planned Parenthood in the wake of the undercover videos exposing its aborted baby body parts trade, but Planned Parenthood sued to block the efforts.

So far, seven federal circuit courts have “written opinions on whether Medicaid patients can sue states that have disqualified Medicaid providers — two ruled in favor of states, and five have ruled against states,” according to Texas Right to Life.

Texas lawmakers have taken steps to cut off other streams of taxpayer funding to the abortion chain as well. In 2019, the legislature passed a law prohibiting government agencies from contracting with groups that provide or promote abortions.

Planned Parenthood is a billion-dollar abortion chain. Its 2019 annual report shows 345,672 abortions — an increase of 3.88 percent from the previous year. Meanwhile, its patient numbers and actual health services, including birth control, cancer screenings and other services, declined.