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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

Texas’s Fight against Planned Parenthood

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  October 30th, 2012 at 11:23 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

With the election and Hurricane Sandy sucking up most of the news oxygen, you may have missed the epic showdown in Texas going on between Rick Perry’s administration and Planned Parenthood.

The Texas legislature passed a law last session (2011) prohibiting any state tax dollars from going to abortion providers or their affiliates. In short – Texans shouldn’t have to fund the killing of babies against their will. You would think that even the abortionists and feminists out there would appreciate that this is fair enough, but of course not.

The feds have their hands in it too. Federal taxpayers fund much of the womens’ health program – and thus, traditionally Planned Parenthood – through a Medicaid waiver from Washington. So, Texas requested to maintain its program while excluding Planned Parenthood. How do you think that request went? Not surprisingly, federal HHS denied it.

So, Governor Perry decided to fund the women’s health program with entirely Texas money and tell Washington to stuff it.

Planned Parenthood trotted on down to the last resort for child killers thwarted by the will of the people – that is, the court system. Not just one court of course — when suing for fictitious rights or favorable interpretations of the law, you have to increase your odds by suing in multiple courts under multiple theories.

You see – it’s far more important to Planned Parenthood that it continue to be able to push women into abortions than it is for the Texas Women’s Health Program to continue to operate. They don’t really care about women’s health – they care about abortion and the taxpayer money they suck in to promote more abortion.

The 5th Circuit sensibly said that Texas could shut out Planned Parenthood under the current program without violating the Constitution. In response, Governor Perry said, “[t]oday’s ruling affirms yet again that in Texas the Women’s Health Program has no obligation to fund Planned Parenthood and other organizations that perform or promote abortion. In Texas we choose life, and we will immediately begin defunding all abortion affiliates to honor and uphold that choice.”

Planned Parenthood then sought sympathy from a local state judge in that bastion of common sense – Austin, Texas. I mean they may have great barbecue and great live music – but they also have a lot of crazy people, including judges.

The state judge – Amy Clark Meachum – took a whole 5 minutes to deliberate and then issued a Temporary Restraining Order with a $100 bond at the request of Planned Parenthood. Then it gets interesting. Who do you think is a Planned Parenthood supporter? Yep. The judge. She admitted so herself in open court before the hearing began. Did she recuse herself? No, of course not. Wouldn’t want to give anyone the idea she is impartial or anything like that.

Planned Parenthood may continue to operate for now. But Texas is right to fight against Texas taxpayer money going to fund abortions. And Governor Perry, his newly appointed State HHSC Commissioner, Dr. Kyle Janek, and the Texas legislature should be applauded for this fight.

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COMMENTS

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  • clowngirl

    Erick,

    Why is one random, liberal judge able to stop them from defunding?

    I suppose this is a court of equal standing to the 5th circuit?

    What will need to happen for this to be decisively settled? A ruling from the Texas Supreme Court maybe?

  • irishgirl

    Rick Perry may or may not have been ready for the national stage, but he and AG Abbott are doing great jobs here in Texas. And when they say “keep Austin weird”, they ain’t kidding…………

  • gscandlen

    Speaking of rogue judges, whatever happened with that wacko county judge in Madison, WI who ruled that the law already upheld by the Wisconsin Supreme Court is unconstitutional anyway?

  • congressworksforus

    Please, stop calling them liberals or progressives. Call them what they really are.

    Leftists.

  • msctex

    “Keep the Weird in Austin?”

  • audax1

    Luling Bar-B-Q, they have one in Houston too.

  • gunnarthor

    This is a new lawsuit, in Texas state court, not the 5th circuit, and addresses entirely new legal ideas.

    Two Texas rules conflicted with each other. The one Erick mentions and another rule. “Judge Amy Clark Meachum issued the order in response to a lawsuit
    filed by Planned Parenthood that argues a new state rule barring clinics
    affiliated with abortion providers from receiving funding under the
    program is invalidated by the Texas Human Resources Code, which makes
    any provision “inoperative” if it causes Texas to lose federal funds for
    the Women’s Health Program — exactly what happened as a result of the
    new rule earlier this year.” So TX had an earlier state rule that prohibited TX from losing federal funds. Perry’s new program would obviously make the state lose lots of federal funds so the judge enjoined that. That’s why.

    There will eventually be a full hearing before the district judge in state court and then it’ll go through the appeals process, unless politics change.

  • fightnright

    Isn’t it a shame that debates have begun to morph into auditions for the Presidency and are judged by casual voters in a pop forum lately not much different from that of American Idol. I understand the Buckley rule, and realize it’s important for a PotUS to be able to express and defend his vision for the nation, its principles and its policies, so that s/he can lead Americans united through peace and war. Still we are losing some of our most capable statesmen through the growing length and brutality of the campaign process.

    Please come back, Governor Perry, (if you should ever be willing again to go to Washington ((and Texans would let you go)) – America needs you.

  • jimtexas

    All Texas judges are elected. Judge Meachum is
    running for re-election in November. She’s a judge in Travis county, a heavily
    Democratic country(it’s the Tx county where the University of Texas is
    located. UT has over 50,000 students–mostly liberal, moron potential
    voters), so she’ll probably be re-elected. In TX, a state judge may be
    impeached by TX House & Senate, they can be removed after
    review of a judicial commission and found guilty by a judicial tribunal,
    or by the Tx Supreme Court.

    Her actions in this case, since it’s so
    close to the election, probably won’t get enough press to cause any
    voter reactions. I’d be willing to bet there’s already a complaint
    started against her for failure to recuse herself from the case.
    Maybe the voters will elect someone else.

    Something to watch—Texas is getting pretty aggressive against activist
    judges and I doubt she’ll escape recourse.

  • clowngirl

    I see. Kind of.

    Thanks!

    (my knee jerk reaction is that that state law seems to be in conflict with the 10th amendment)

  • clowngirl

    true enough.

  • rkinroanoke

    kudos to Governor Perry.
    They have not taken away anyone’s access to Planned Parenthood or their services; they have simply said Texas taxpayers don’t have to pay for those services. Fabulous!

    This is true of contraception as well. There is a distinction between access and free. To bring back a term from the 50s: TANSTAAFL

    Way to go Tx.

  • gunnarthor

    In fairness, most of the funding (90%) was paid for by taxpayers of other states, not Texas. Perry’s new plan will shift that burdon to TX taxpayers.

  • texashistorian

    That’s fine with me. States ought to be paying their own way for crap like this- it’s federalism in action! The principle at stake is larger than money. I reckon we won’t see any property tax or sales tax increases over this anyhow

  • davesinsanantonio

    The problem with the claim that 90% of anything is paid for by other states is that 90% of their crap is paid for by Texans (and the others). As rkinroanoke pointed out TANSTAAFL (the greatest acronym ever!) That silly claim is how liberals get the sheep to vote for overspending on crap that isn’t needed, and thus get to later raise our taxes, and increase their power over us, when the bill from those other states comes due. If each state would pay for its own stuff and not try to get other states to do so through the federal confiscators, then we would all be better off both financially and libertywise.

  • davesinsanantonio

    We can only hope!

  • jerseygalnny

    Great news, Erick. I am adding this to the discussion forum on FR http://fundamentalrefounding.ning.com/ I think this would have flown under the mainstream media radar even if we didn’t have a storm. Libya did, right?

  • cwfoster

    It’s been years since I left the Lone Star State, but there used to be a good place in Fulshear, I THINK it was named Dozier’s. But then, many of my old favorite eateries have gone the way of the dodo bird.

  • justperhaps45

    They are all of the above and more. What the are not is adherents to the Constitutional principals that made America the most successful society on this earth. But that is understandable since, according to the founders, for the Republic to succeed self regulating, moral people are required.

  • cwfoster

    I hate to say this but I’m split 50/50 on this one. The Judge SHOULD have recused herself, and should face some form of impeachment or censure for failing to do so, but from what was posted above, about conflicting state rules and laws, she was correct in her ruling. The Legislature needs to remove that rule (probably put in place by Ann Richards) and address the ROOT of her ruling, then her ruling would be moot.

  • edintexas

    Becoming? Might I remind you that, before the fall of “The Evil Empire”, many of us called it Moscow on the Guadalupe.

  • gunnarthor

    Maybe, maybe not. But in this case, it’s a moot point. Gov Perry has promised that there won’t be any drop in quality of services for Texas women (whether or not that’s feasible is a different question). Currently, about 90% of those services are paid for through federal funding. So if he goes through with this switch to make it all funded through TX taxpayers, either the quality of services will drop (most likely), funding for it will come through different services in TX or he’ll have to raise taxes. Or, the politicians come up with some kind of political solution that lets TX keep some federal funding.

    Regardless of what happens in TX, federal taxes won’t change.

  • http://www.plumbbobblog.com Plumb_Bob

    That statistic — 90% paid by taxpayers from other states — sounds ridiculous to me. Are you saying that Texas citizens pay “only” 10% of the taxes received by the government? What percentage of federal tax monies are SPENT in Texas? How was that allocation figured? Was it accurate?

    It is more likely the case that Texas taxpayers paid every penny of the tax money being spent in their state by the federal government — insofar as it makes sense at all to speak of which taxpayer contributed a federal dollar.

  • gizmo

    Here again, if Planned Parenthood is such a GREAT idea, why can’t it stand on its own without government handouts? Then they could do whatever they want to with the money, since it would be a private business. Of course, if Bib Brother REALLY wanted to help, the whole abortion “system” would need to meet the stringent requirements of any other medical system! That would shut down a large portion of them right there!

  • http://www.plumbbobblog.com Plumb_Bob

    I did not see any information above that would enable even a well-informed attorney to assess the correctness or incorrectness of the ruling.

    What rule did you see?

  • gunnarthor

    It’s a medical care provider and it is private, the conditions being considered are being put on by the state of Texas to all health care providers. Governments (state and federal) pay PP to provide medical services to a large pool of people – mostly women, mostly poor but not always. Many private companies and charities – liberal and conservative – get paid in this way (if TX goes through with its plan, some new private companies will step up to collect money from TX).