There’s quite a backstory to this over the past few months. It started with the passage of the Big Beautiful Bill which included a section cutting Medicaid funding from some health clinics associated with abortion providers. The bill didn’t mention Planned Parenthood by name but many observers saw it as aimed largely at them.
The question of whether or not Medicaid funding could be cut off from Planned Parenthood had already been settled by the Supreme Court in June in a 6-3 decision involving South Carolina. Nevertheless, when the BBB passed, Planned Parenthood immediately sued in Boston and within hours Judge Indira Talwani issued a temporary restraining order on their behalf.
Defendants, their agents, employees, appointees, successors, and anyone acting in concert or participation with Defendants shall take all steps necessary to ensure that Medicaid funding continues to be disbursed in the customary manner and timeframes to Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its members; Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts; and Planned Parenthood Association of Utah.
Two weeks later, the initial order expired but Judge Talwani quickly ordered a new one which was more limited in scope. Planned Parenthood has 47 regional affiliates and the new order only covered 10 of those.
A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction on Monday night that allowed only a fraction of Planned Parenthood health centers to receive Medicaid payments for services like birth control, annual checkups and tests for sexually transmitted diseases. While the judge is open to extending the injunction to cover more clinics, for now most of them are not covered by the order…
Judge Indira Talwani, of the Federal District Court in Massachusetts, said that in all, 10 affiliates were covered under her injunction, including Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, Planned Parenthood of Delaware, Planned Parenthood Greater Texas, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, and Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi.
Carrie Severino from the Judicial Network predicted the Trump administration would succeed in getting the order overturned. Here’s a bit of her argument:
Judge Indira Talwani has delivered what may be one of the most questionable judicial decisions in recent memory—and that’s saying something given the current judicial climate. Her handling of the Planned Parenthood funding case is a textbook case of judicial overreach…
Let’s start with the obvious: Planned Parenthood has no constitutional right to taxpayer funding. None. Yet Talwani attempted an elaborate workaround, invoking the “unconstitutional conditions doctrine” to argue that funding restrictions violated Planned Parenthood’s freedom of association.
This argument falls apart under scrutiny. Talwani cited no precedent supporting her theory that similar funding conditions violate associational rights. That’s because there isn’t any. The funding restriction has nothing to do with Planned Parenthood organizations’ “expressive association” with each other—it’s about the services they provide.
Meanwhile, Judge Talwani went back to the drawing board and came up with a new argument to expand her TRO to the entire country.
The order, issued by Judge Indira Talwani in Federal District Court in Massachusetts, extended a temporary block she had placed on the government earlier this month. She found that the policy retaliated against Planned Parenthood in violation of its First Amendment rights and could amount to an unconstitutional “legislative punishment.”…
She noted the expansive role that Planned Parenthood’s umbrella organization plays in political organizing, saying that the provision could also threaten “expressive” activity including advocating before Congress, supporting candidates and communicating with voters.
As I wrote at the time, “it sounds like she’s saying Planned Parenthood’s affiliates are involved in politics therefore they have a First Amendment right to continue getting government money so their political organizing isn’t diminished.” Planned Parenthood certainly has the right to affiliate with who it wants and to express political opinions. Those are rights protected by the 1st Amendment. What they don’t have is a right to government funds while doing it.
Today the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals has weighed in on this. They overturned Judge Talwani’s TRO.
The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to put on hold a preliminary injunction issued in July by a lower-court judge who concluded the law likely violated the U.S. Constitution by targeting Planned Parenthood’s health centers specifically as punishment for providing abortions…
The U.S. Department of Justice told the 1st Circuit that in halting the provision, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani overrode the judgment of the democratically-elected branches of government that “taxpayer funds should not be used to subsidize certain entities that practice abortion – conduct that many Americans find morally abhorrent.”
It said Talwani, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, used “flimsy” reasoning to conclude the law constituted an unconstitutional “bill of attainder.”
A bill of attainder is a legislative act prohibited by the Constitution that seeks to inflict punishment on a person or group without a trial. The Supreme Court has only invalidated laws passed by Congress five times under that clause, the Justice Department said.
What this means is that Medicaid does not have to continue funding Planned Parenthood clinics while this case continues. Planned Parenthood is probably going to have to shutter a bunch more clinics now that they’ve been cut off. But government funding is under the control of congress and it’s congress that cut them off. Judge Talwani’s attempts to overrule congress (and the president who signed the bill) won’t stand.
Editor’s Note: Radical leftist judges are doing everything they can to hamstring President Trump’s agenda to make America great again.
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