Texas to fully end taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood facilities in Texas will no longer receive taxpayer funds through the Medicaid program beginning Feb. 3.

The state denied the abortion provider’s request to continue to receive Medicaid reimbursement funding for its clinics, as Catholic News Agency observed.

Jennifer Allmon, executive director of the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops, praised the persistence of the Texas legislature, and said while the abortion industry has spread the narrative low-income women need Planned Parenthood for health services, many other options actually exist. 

“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. 

In November, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit overruled a lower district court’s decision, ending a five-year battle waged by Planned Parenthood affiliates in Texas to block the state from eliminating their Medicaid taxpayer funding.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton cited undercover video showing Planned Parenthood’s fetal tissue activities in his statement about the ruling, asserting the abortion vendor is not “qualified” to receive taxpayer funds:

“The Fifth Circuit correctly rejected Planned Parenthood’s efforts to prevent Texas from excluding them from the state’s Medicaid program. Undercover video plainly showed Planned Parenthood admitting to morally bankrupt and unlawful conduct, including violations of federal law by manipulating the timing and methods of abortions to obtain fetal tissue for their own research. Planned Parenthood is not a ‘qualified’ provider under the Medicaid Act, and it should not receive public funding through the Medicaid program.”

Planned Parenthood based its case on the claim a patient should be able to choose who is a Medicaid provider, as CEO Alexis McGill Johnson tweeted.