A federal judge on Friday permanently blocked Ohio from implementing laws that would defund Planned Parenthood by making the agency ineligible for state funding to pay for health care programs for the poor.
The judge also ruled the laws unconstitutional.
Judge Michael R. Barrett of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio ruled the state’s efforts violated Planned Parenthood’s rights to free speech and due process and that any action to implement the law would cause irreparable injury.
While Barrett acknowledged that Ohio could legally establish a policy that favored childbirth over abortion and that it could (as it has done) bar use of public funding on non-therapeutic abortion procedures, the programs hit by this state law have nothing to do with abortion.
The programs, operated by Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio and Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio, provide health services for the poor at little to no cost to patients. The services included testing for HIV/AIDS and other STDs, Pap smears and other cancer screenings, infant mortality prevention programs and sexual health education programs.
Planned Parenthood won contracts from the state to provide the services, in many cases as the lowest and best bidder for the programs.
The state law effectively would have forced Planned Parenthood to abandon a constitutionally protected activity as a condition of receiving public funds unrelated to abortion, Barrett ruled.
Planned Parenthood cheered the ruling as a victory for access to health care services.
“This law would have been especially burdensome to communities of color and people with low income who already often have the least access to care – this law would have made a bad situation worse,” said Iris E. Harvey, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio. “Politicians have no business blocking patients from the care they need – and today the court stopped them in their tracks.”
The Ohio Department of Health and its director, Richard Hodges, did not have an immediate comment to the ruling. The attorney general’s office said the state will appeal.
Ohio Right to Life, an anti-abortion advocate, decried the ruling, labeling Barrett an unelected activist judge.
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