Despite Abbott's boasts, state has not blocked Planned Parenthood funds
Feeding on outrage sparked by the release of controversial undercover videos of Planned Parenthood officials, Gov. Greg Abbott vowed one year ago to cut off $3.1 million in Medicaid funding that the organization's Texas affiliates receive to provide family planning and women's health care services to the poor.
Because of its abortion services — which are separate from the health programs and receive no public funds — the organization is hardly an uncommon target of Republican rhetorical assaults. But Abbott's 2015 pledge was oddly timed. It came the same day a federal district court in Louisiana told that state it could not legally kick Planned Parenthood out of its Medicaid program.
Although the same legal reasoning appeared to apply to Texas, Abbott quickly used the defunding pledge as fodder to solicit donations for his hefty campaign war chest. How much money the first-term governor raised off the issue is unclear.
What is clear one year later, however, is that roughly 12,000 low-income women in Texas are still obtaining services from Planned Parenthood through the Medicaid program, which is mostly federally funded. And state leaders who spearheaded the charge to cut off funding have little to say about their failure to do so.
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