On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit sided with state officials and held individual clients of various Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas had no legal standing to bring a claim for violation of their civil rights because Texas determined that the clinics were “not qualified to provide medical services in a professionally competent, safe, legal[,] and ethical manner under the relevant provisions of state and federal law pertaining to Medicaid providers.”

In 2016, the state cut funding to abortion clinics after the release of undercover videos from the Center for Medical Progress which documented the abortion-provider’s staff members participating in the illegal harvesting of aborted fetal body parts. After a years-long court battle, the Fifth Circuit overruled the lower court ruling that allowed the individuals to sue Texas on the ground that the state’s disqualification of the Planned Parenthood clinics from the state’s Medicaid program violated their right to abortion. 

In a statement Monday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton applauded the ruling, stating, "Undercover video plainly showed Planned Parenthood admitting to morally bankrupt and unlawful conduct, including violations of federal law by manipulating the timing and methods of abortions to obtain fetal tissue for their own research,” he said in a statement. “Planned Parenthood is not a ‘qualified’ provider under the Medicaid Act, and it should not receive public funding through the Medicaid program.” 

Notwithstanding the breadth of the attorney general’s statement, the appellate court did not hold that the clinics themselves had no right to sue over their disqualification and that issue was returned to the trial court.

News Sources: