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Planned Parenthood sues Missouri for not forcing taxpayers to fund abortion businesses
Planned Parenthood is suing over a Missouri state budget it claims illegally withholds Medicaid funds from the abortion giant and affiliated providers, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
After the Missouri legislature passed a budget in February, the abortion giant filed a lawsuit March 10th against the Missouri Department of Social Services, claiming the restrictions coming through the department are illegal and unconstitutional. The budget in question appropriates $0 for reimbursement to clinics or offices that commit abortions, and directs Social Services that “no funds shall be expended to any clinic, physician’s office, or any other place or facility in which abortions are performed or induced other than a hospital,” effectively suspending the abortion chain from Medicaid reimbursement.
The lawsuit berates legislators for using the power of the purse and insists that lawmakers must be forced to appropriate taxpayer finding for abortion providers, claiming that “an appropriation bill cannot disqualify an otherwise eligible provider from participating in the MO HealthNet Program. Nor can an appropriation bill eliminate funding to a particular class of providers who are statutorily eligible to participate in that Program.”
Interim president for Planned Parenthood Great Plains, Emily Wales, released a statement condemning the measure. “The Medicaid law is clear, and Missouri is in desperate need of providers committed to seeing everyone who needs them,” she said. “Planned Parenthood is just that: A provider whose doors are open.”
Other statements, such as the one from Yamelsie Rodríguez, CEO of Planned Parenthood St. Louis region, focused on other services Planned Parenthood offers in attempt to paint the abortion giant as a legitimate health provider and distract from the issue at hand. “That is our unbreakable commitment to the thousands of Medicaid patients who rely on us for life-saving health care,” Rodríguez said, according to St. Louis Public Radio.
Kelli Jones, a spokeswoman for Missouri Governor Mike Parson, pushed back on the rhetoric of the lawsuit’s supporters. “State agencies are beholden to the appropriations laws as enacted by the General Assembly,” she said, according to the Post-Dispatch. “Other state legislatures have placed similar limitations on their Medicaid programs and ultimately the courts will adjudicate cases and controversies that arise from this kind of legislation.”
Other lawmakers voiced the thoughts of many pro-lifers. “I hope they lose,” Senator Caleb Rowden told Fox 2 Now. “We don’t want to fund Planned Parenthood….”
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