Planned Parenthood Funding Fight Continues in Indiana Today

After Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels (R-Adicalextremist) signed a measure in May to make Indiana the first state in the US to defund Planned Parenthood, Planned Parenthood requested a restraining order to block the legislation until they could appeal it, a request which was denied by a federal judge. Planned Parenthood Indiana was forced to take a furlough day in June after it ran out of state funding, before Judge Tanya Walton Pratt ruled later in the month that the state could not defund Planned Parenthood, because it was a violation of federal Medicaid rules and would "exact a devastating financial toll on PPIN and hinder its ability to continue serving patients' general health needs."

Enforcement of the law was blocked, which the State then appealed in August, and today the fight resumes at a US Circuit Court of Appeals.

Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller said the funding battle is centered on abortion. "The Legislature doesn't want to the indirect funding of abortions by tax payers," Zoeller said.

PPIN CEO Betty Cockrum said the funding should be focused on healthcare.

"The worst thing that can happen is to diminish access to health care," Cockrum said.

..."We are really asking that the court eliminate the injunctive relief that the lower court granted so that we can continue to do what the statute says," Cockrum said. "You cannot discriminate against an entity because it's providing a constitutionally protected service."

..."[The funding is] for pap tests. It's for STD testing and treatment. It's for birth control. Birth control is very important," Cockrum said.

Indiana officials said the legal battle could end if PPIN separates its abortion services from all others.

"The state has the right to avoid even the indirect funding of abortion services," Zoeller said.

"Not one penny of Medicaid money goes toward abortion, except in those very rare circumstances where there's a police report regarding rape or incest," Cockrum said.

In other words, the state already is avoiding "even the indirect funding of abortion services," but that's not good enough for inarticulated reasons best left vague because they are manifest horseshit.

Zoeller and the rest of the conservative nincompoops at the Indiana Statehouse can keep yammering about "the indirect funding of abortions by tax payers" all they want, but it's an evident line of bullshit spouted by mendacious cowards who refuse to be honest about their real objective of undermining pregnant people's legal access to abortion.

[H/T to @PPINAdvocates.]