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.
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