Arkansas cut off tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to the abortion chain Planned Parenthood last week after winning a lengthy legal battle.
Lawmakers in Arkansas voted to defund the abortion chain of Medicaid dollars in 2015 after a series of undercover videos showed Planned Parenthood potentially illegally selling aborted baby body parts. However, abortion activists challenged the law.
The case made its way to a panel of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that the state could defund Planned Parenthood. The abortion group appealed to the full court, but the court refused to hear the case, allowing the ruling to stand.
On Monday, the state Department of Human Services said it ended the abortion chain’s Medicaid provider status last week, the AP reports. This means Planned Parenthood facilities in Arkansas no longer will receive tax dollars through Medicaid.
In 2015, Planned Parenthood received more than $51,000 in taxpayer-funded Medicaid payments in Arkansas. Even though the funding does not go to abortions directly, it is fungible and frees up money to promote and perform abortions.
Earlier this month, Judd Deere, a spokesman for state Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, emphasized the importance of states being allowed to cut of tax dollars to groups engaging in unethical practices.
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“… [the ruling] reaffirms that Planned Parenthood and the three patients it recruited could not contest in federal court Arkansas’s determination that a medical provider has engaged in misconduct that merits disqualification from the Medicaid program,” Deere said in an email to the Democrat Gazette.
The abortion chain still could appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, but a spokesperson said they have not decided yet, according to the AP.
When the state defunded the abortion business in 2015, Gov. Asa Hutchinson expressed outrage at the abortion chain’s barbaric practices.
“It is apparent that after the recent revelations on the actions of Planned Parenthood, that this organization does not represent the values of the people of our state and Arkansas is better served by terminating any and all existing contracts with them. This includes their affiliated organization, Planned Parenthood of Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma,” Hutchinson said at the time.
In a statement, Hutchinson said he was ending the contracts after videos surfaced showing top Planned Parenthood executives haggling over the price of aborted babies’ body parts, admitting to altering abortion procedures to procure better organs and casually discussing ways their doctors “crush” unborn babies to obtain fully intact body parts.
Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion business in the United States, performing more than 320,000 abortions on unborn babies every year.
