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A Federal Judge Just Gave an Epic Defense of Planned Parenthood That Everyone Should Read
Mother Jones
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In a blistering opinion, a federal judge blocked Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s attempt to defund Planned Parenthood in the state, saying the move would cause “irreparable harm” to the 5,200 women who depend on the organization for health care.
In July, Jindal ordered an investigation into the group following the release of a series of highly edited videos that show Planned Parenthood officials discussing fetal tissue donation. He also ordered the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) to cancel Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast’s (PPGC) Medicaid contract, which it did in August, effectively defunding the organization in the state. Neither of the two Planned Parenthood clinics in Louisiana offer abortions. Planned Parenthood took the DHH to court later that month.
US District Judge John W. deGravelles issued a restraining order against the DHH’s move late Sunday. The order will remain in place for at least two weeks while the judge makes a final ruling on the case. However, in his opinion, deGravelles was outspoken in his support of Planned Parenthood. He wrote that the DHH attack on the organization was baseless:
The uncontradicted evidence in the record at this time is that PPGC does not perform abortions in Louisiana, is not involved in the sale of fetal tissue and none of the conduct in question occurred at the PPGC’s two Louisiana facilities. Based on the record before it, it appears likely that Plaintiff will be able to prove that the attempted termination against it are motived and driven, at least in large part, by reasons unrelated to its competence and unique to it.
He also disputed a common Republican argument (which former Mother Jones reporter Molly Redden debunked last month) that closing Planned Parenthood won’t burden its patients, who would have access to other reproductive health providers in the area. According to deGravelles, defunding Planned Parenthood would leave thousands of women without options:
The Court turns to the uncontested and unquestioned facts—PPGC serves 5,200 poor and needy women, and PPGC has repeatedly been deemed a ‘competent’ provider by DHH—and honors the public interest in affording these women access to their provider of choice…For decades, PPGC has served numerous at-risk individuals and helped DHH combat a host of diseases, and, in the process, become the regular provider of over 5,000 women.
Several other states, including Arkansas, Utah, and Alabama, have cut funding for Planned Parenthood by canceling Medicaid contracts. In August, the Obama administration notified Alabama and Louisiana that cutting Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid funding may violate federal law.
For its part, Jindal’s office said on Monday that the governor would “continue to fight to ensure Planned Parenthood no longer receives taxpayer funding.”
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A Federal Judge Just Gave an Epic Defense of Planned Parenthood That Everyone Should Read
Posted in Anchor, Everyone, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta
Tagged alabama, anchor, louisiana, medicaid, mojo, mother, Ona, planned-parenthood, ppgc, republican, top stories, venta
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Yeah, Democrats Are Pretty Pro-Corporate Too
Mother Jones
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A couple of days ago I poured cold water on the idea that tea partiers might join up with the Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party to form some kind of populist anti-corporate coalition. “Every once in a while they’ll get themselves exercised over some trivial issue of ‘crony capitalism’ like reauthorizing the Export-Import bank,” I said, but the truth is that the tea partiers have no real devotion to anti-corporatism. They just want to cut taxes and slash welfare.
Over at National Review, Veronique de Rugy tries to make the case that ExIm is more important than I’m giving it credit for, but I’m not buying it. Sorry. It’s just a shiny object of the moment that’s both small and costs virtually nothing. On the other hand, I’m entirely willing to buy de Rugy’s suggestion that Democrats aren’t especially anti-corporate either:
Please. They talk the talk, but when it’s time to vote, they rarely walk the walk. In the end, not unlike a number of Republicans, Democrats rarely miss an opportunity to support big businesses. They support the Department of Energy’s 1705 loans, which mostly go to wealthy energy companies, and they never fail to join Republicans in saving other corporate energy subsidies; they support the reauthorization of OPIC, which mostly benefits large corporations; they support farm subsidies, which mostly benefit large agro-businesses at the expenses of small farms; they support Obamacare, which among other things amounts to a huge giveaway to the insurance industry; they support auto and bank bailouts; and for all their complaints about Wall Street, they managed to write a law, Dodd-Frank, that in some ways protects the big financial institutions that they claim to despise.
I’d quibble with some of this. Obamacare is indeed good for the insurance industry, but it’s not that good. And anyway, this is mostly due to the fact that the structure of American health care is historically dependent on private insurance, and it’s just not possible to completely overhaul that overnight. In this case, Democrats caved in to special interests as much because they had to as because they wanted to.
Still, it’s true that most Democrats are pretty cozy with corporate America. There’s a smallish anti-corporate wing of the party, but it rarely has much influence because (a) it’s usually outnumbered in the Democratic caucus and (b) there’s essentially no anti-corporate wing of the Republican Party to team up with. Being pro-corporate is one of the few bipartisan issues left in Congress. There are lots of fights over small stuff, but it’s mostly just window dressing that hides widespread agreement over the big stuff.
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