Health provider loses key ruling
Judge: State can exclude Planned Parenthood from its Women’s Health Program.
Texas can exclude Planned Parenthood from the Women’s Health Program when the state begins running the initiative in the new year, a judge ruled Monday.
Visiting Judge Gary Harger denied the organization’s request for a temporary restraining order that would have forced Texas to allow Planned Parenthood to remain in the program, which provides contraceptive and preventive health care to about 110,000 low-income women a year.
The denial cannot be appealed. The fight now shifts to a hearing tentatively set for Jan. 11, when another judge will hear arguments in Planned Parenthood’s attempt to overturn state rules banning participation from organizations that promote abortion rights or affiliate with organizations that provide or promote abortions.
Harger’s two-page order said Planned Parenthood failed to demonstrate that it would experience “immediate, concrete and irreparable injury, loss or damage” in the time between today — when the ban takes effect — and the Jan. 11 hearing.
During a Friday hearing before Harger, however, a Planned Parenthood lawyer said several of the organization’s clinics will be forced to close immediately after the ban is enforced, including two or three of the four clinics serving the Rio Grande Valley.
Gov. Rick Perry, a leader in efforts to deny state funding to Planned Parenthood, a vocal proponent of abortion rights, praised the decision.
“Today’s ruling finally clears the way for thousands of low-income Texas women to access much-needed care, while at the same time respecting the values and laws of our state,” Perry said in a written statement issued Monday. “I applaud all those who stand ready to help these women live healthy lives without sending taxpayer money to abortion providers and their affiliates.”
A Planned Parenthood official criticized state leaders for lacking “commitment to Texas women, their health and their well-being.”
“It is shocking that once again Texas officials are letting politics jeopardize health care access for women,” said Ken Lambrecht, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas. “This case isn’t about Planned Parenthood — it’s about women ... who rely on us for basic, preventive health care.”
Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of care in the Women’s Health Program, serving about 48,000 women a year. Pending the results from the Jan. 11 hearing, Planned Parenthood clients will face fees and other charges if they continue with the organization, or they will have to find another provider. A list is available on a state Health and Human Services Commission’s website, www.texaswomenshealth.org.
In the hearing later this month, Planned Parenthood will ask state Dis- trict Judge Stephen Yelenosky to issue a temporary injunction setting aside rules banning the organization, arguing that state laws governing the Women’s Health Program do not give Texas officials the authority to implement such a ban.
Perry and other Republican leaders argue that Texas can determine which agencies qualify for inclusion in the program.
Planned Parenthood’s lawyers also will ask Yelenosky to halt state attempts to cancel the Women’s Health Program if the organization prevails in court. Perry and other Republican leaders have said that state law requires the program to end if they are forced to include Planned Parenthood.
Texas introduced rules to ban Planned Parenthood from the program in February 2012, but various lawsuits had allowed the organization to continue participating throughout last year.
In the meantime, the federal government informed Texas that it would stop providing 90 percent of the program’s money on Dec. 31. The Planned Parenthood ban, U.S. officials said, violated federal law governing how Medicaid money can be spent.
Under Perry’s direction, state health officials created a state-run, statefinanced Women’s Health Program to launch today, without Planned Parenthood, at an estimated cost of $36.3 million this year and $45.2 million in 2014. The organization sued in mid-December, seeking to remain in the Texas-run program.