US District Judge Indira Talwani ruled on Monday that Planned Parenthood clinics must continue to receive reimbursement for Medicaid, a poor government program.
In her Monday order, Talwani stated that “patients are likely to experience adverse health effects where care is interrupted or unavailable.” Because of less access to safe contraceptives and an increase in undiagnosed and untreated STIs, restricting Members’ ability to provide healthcare services, in particular, is a possibility.
Planned Parenthood was suing a provision of a recent Republican tax and spending bill that temporarily suspended Medicaid payments for abortion providers who received more than $800,000 from Medicaid in 2023.
Organizations that offer abortions, such as Planned Parenthood, also offer reproductive health services like contraception, pregnancy tests, and STD testing, as the US already prohibits federal funding from funding abortion services.
The organization estimated that 200 clinics in 24 states could shut down as a result of the bill’s provision, with more than one million patients at risk of losing coverage as a result.
As part of a wider effort to curtail access to reproductive health services, conservative politicians have long sought to restrict Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider,’s ability to receive federal funding.
Numerous Republican-led states have enacted new restrictions on abortion or completely banned it since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a previous 1973 decision that made abortion a constitutional right, in June 2022.
A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction today, preventing Planned Parenthood from returning to full effect in the reconciliation law, according to a statement from Planned Parenthood on Monday.
Source: Aljazeera
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