Federal Appeals Court Upholds Ohio Law Defunding Planned Parenthood
“Private organizations do not have a constitutional right to obtain governmental funding to support their activities”
Following the truly horrific 2015 revelations that Planned Parenthood was harvesting baby parts and haggling over baby brains for profit, Republican governors across the nation moved to ban taxpayer funding to Planned Parenthood. In February 2016, then-Ohio Governor John Kasich signed into law a bill that restricted state funding to Planned Parenthood.
While a lower court had previously blocked the state from stripping $1.5 million in funding from the nation’s top abortion provider, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that Ohio can indeed defund Planned Parenthood.
A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled that Ohio is able to defund Planned Parenthood clinics because they perform abortions.
Eleven judges on the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an Ohio law prohibiting state health department funding from going to any provider who offers “non-therapeutic abortions” does not violate the Constitution, “because the affiliates do not have a due process right to perform abortions.”
The court ruled 11-6 that the ban does not pose an undue burden on a woman’s right to an abortion. Women have a right to an abortion, but Planned Parenthood affiliates do not have a constitutional right to perform abortions, the court said.
“Private organizations do not have a constitutional right to obtain governmental funding to support their activities,” Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote for the majority. “The State also may choose not to subsidize constitutionally protected activities. Just as it has no obligation to provide a platform for an individual’s free speech … it has no obligation to pay for a woman’s abortion.”
If anyone has any remaining doubt about President’s Trump’s judicial legacy, this ruling may help bolster their confidence in this very important aspect of his presidency.
The Hill continues:
The ruling is a victory for anti-abortion activists and is one of many cases in recent years brought by conservative states against abortion providers. Republicans have been emboldened by a slate of conservative judges appointed by President Trump.
Four of the 11 judges on the panel were Trump appointees; all six dissenting judges were appointed by Democratic presidents. [emphasis mine]
Obviously, Kasich wasn’t “emboldened” by President Trump’s appointees since he signed the law back in 2016, but it’s fun to see posts already referencing Trump-appointed judges making a difference on matters of importance.
It’s equally fun to see that pro-lifers are now being called “anti-abortion” rather than the old rhetorically lunatic “anti-choice.” Color me amused that the left has so fully shed its mask that they are now willing to admit—finally, if tacitly—that their pro-abortion stance once couched as “safe, legal, and rare” is actually “pro-abortion.” Heck, we all know that it now includes post-birth abortion, so I guess that’s not exactly a revelation.
Meanwhile, the perpetually outraged and “woke” left is freaking out. As usual.
When are they going to ban sex?
— Dr p a moore (@pamoore4) March 20, 2018
Make no mistake, the 6th Circuit’s disastrous decision today to support state’s defunding of Ohio #PlannedParenthood is an outright assault on young women’s health, since PP is one of the largest health care providers for women under 40. @acluohio stands with @PPAOhio, @PPFA!
— J. Bennett Guess (@jbennettguess) March 13, 2019
The party of disconnect telling women what to do with their life. Just what we need.
— #14thAmendment #ExpelTheTraitors #NoJusticeNoPeace (@lionrebel88) March 20, 2018
Chairman @DavidPepper: “The majority of Ohioans oppose defunding @PPAOhio … Today’s decision is a tragedy for Ohio women and their families, who are the ones who will be hurt by @MikeDeWine’s radical agenda." https://t.co/i1HocBfM9l#StandWithPP #OHGOV #OHPOL
— Ohio Dems (@OHDems) March 12, 2019
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Comments
A grain of sanity on a continent of insanity.
Way to go 6th Circuit! Way to go, Ohio! All lives matter! MAGA.
Um, two of the four tweets you embedded are a year old and have nothing to do with this decision.
Most of the previous decisions wisely centered on budgetary process and rule making defects. Because this was not an issue here, the court was boxed in. The idea that 6 judges determined that a legislature must fund a private organization is strange.
They’re Democrats first before being judges. Oh that Article VI oath to the Constitution? A mere trifle to a Democrat.
I wonder what the dissenting judges would say if someone filed a suit demanding that the state support other constitutional rights, such as the second amendment. Make the state pay for gun training and subsidize gun purchases.
Reimbursement of the 10 to 11% federal excise tax on guns and ammo would be appreciated.
Matching government funds to the NRA? More than likely an impossible statistic to determine, but I wonder how many lives the NRA has helped save through firearms safety training and training those who sought to protect themselves with firearms. A few of the NRA’s roles are education and the preservation of rights as articulated in the Bill of Rights. I read my copy of the Constitution and Bill of Rights again last week, I did not find abortion mentioned a single time. Yet pp has been getting taxpayer money for years and years. Insane.
Progress… Correction, positive progress. Selective and cannibalized-child are two choices too late and bad ethics, respectively, wicked solutions. This is a baby step in the right direction to end age discrimination, summary judgments, and cruel and unusual punishment. There needs to be a reconciliation of rights, of the mother and child, not rites. Granting standing to the father to represent the life and dignity of their child is also positive progress, where the father and mother share responsibility for her conception and dignity.
Crush below, crush above, in self-defense? No? Wicked.
It should be emphasized that this was an en banc decision. A full panel of the 6th circuit, reversing the earlier 3 judge panel composed of 2 clinton hacks and one bush hack. This decision bears a little more weight.
No defund all private entities getting taxpayer dollars. Start with the ones the most politically active.
If Hillary had been elected, the vote would have been 10-7 against the pro-life cause.
“4 of the 11 judges on the panel were appointed by Trump … the 6 dissenting judges”
The Hill is trying to slant this in this part of the article or are bad at math. Both are strengths of theirs. 6 of 11 can’t vote against and dissent on the opinion as a whole. The other side would be writing the dissent.
It was an 11-6 decision, so 6 of 17. Trump appointed 4 of the 17.
This still affirms that’s Trump is having an impact on returning to common sense judicial decisions. Like no private organization is entitled to gobs of government money and is above the law.
He’s my President.
Again, notice the deceptive rhetoric: “telling women what to do with *their* life” (not the baby’s) and “*women’s* health” (also not the baby’s).
Also a “tragedy for … women and their families” — which apparently doesn’t include the baby for whom an abortion is indeed a tragedy (in the modern sense of the word.)
You see continued wailing over how defunding PP because of its abortion activities reduces access to non-abortion health care and/or contraception. Free market. If there’s a lack of those, there’s nothing to prevent doctors and clinics from filling that need – sans abortion mills.
A lot of taxpayers are no longer believing the folks pretending they want abortions to be “rare” whilst defending the abortionist “right” to taxpayer subsidy.
“Private organizations do not have a constitutional right to obtain governmental funding to support their activities”
DUH! Too bad we can’t make the folks in DC understand. How does NONE of our Conservative agenda EVERY get passed even when we’re in the majority in DC?
Funding decisions are policy decisions and should not be made by the courts. And, just because you have been funded once does not mean that funding must be continued. One of the more dangerous assaults by leftist judges on the constitution has been that once something is lawfully passed or an executive order issued it cannot be halted or repealed. No repeal turns every form of funding into an entitlement. Funding is a policy issue and the right forum for review is an election. While this libertarian Republican is pro-choice and so regrets that part of the Sixth Circuit decision, the part about funding and repeal is good news.
As the law stands today, there is a right to abortion, but there can never be a right to force others to pay for it (and certainly not by taxing the public and giving their money to abortion providers).
I would argue (despite politically-driven court decisions to the contrary)that government has no authority to fund any private organization or institution. It is not within the legitimate powers of government provide funding to anyone outside government, other than for goods and services necessary for government to accomplish its legitimate functions.