Planned Parenthood Wins in a Florida Court

A judge actually did something good for the health provider.

Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, arrives to speak at a Planned Parenthood Action Fund membership event, Friday, June 10, 2016 in Washington.AP Photo/Alex Brandon

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


A federal judge permanently blocked parts of Florida omnibus legislation that aimed to cut off state funding for preventative health services at women’s clinics that also provide abortions, a measure that was perceived to have targeted Planned Parenthood clinics. Another provision in the law that would have vastly increased what providers have described as unnecessary records inspection requirements for abortion clinics was permanently blocked as well. 

The ruling comes at a critical time for Florida—Zika is now spreading in Miami Beach and north of Miami, Gov. Rick Scott confirmed Friday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have issued a new travel warning that advises pregnant women to avoid the area. So far, there have been 36 confirmed cases.

“We are grateful the court stepped in to stop Rick Scott in his tracks and protect access to health care,” said Lillian Tamayo, CEO of Planned Parenthood of South, East, and North Florida. “If this law had gone into effect, it would have made a bad situation even worse. With the threat of Zika growing by the day, this care is even more critical. It’s time to stop political attacks on women’s basic health care.”

The legislation passed the conservative Legislature with ease back in March, and Scott signed it into law shortly thereafter. The law specifically took aim at Planned Parenthood’s funding in the wake of a smear campaign by anti-abortion activist David Daleiden that alleged Planned Parenthood was selling fetal tissue for profit. (None of the investigations into Daleiden’s allegations have found the health care provider guilty of any wrongdoing.) In June, US District Judge Robert Hinkle temporarily put provisions in the law on hold after Florida Planned Parenthood affiliates challenged them as unconstitutional.

“The Supreme Court has repeatedly said that a government cannot prohibit indirectly—by withholding otherwise-available public funds—conduct that the government could not constitutionally prohibit directly,” Hinkle wrote in June when he placed the law on hold.

State and federal law already prohibit the use of federal funds to finance abortion procedures. The Florida law would have cut $500,000 in expected state funding that Planned Parenthood uses to fund health care screenings and a school dropout prevention program. Opponents of the law also criticized its requirements for records inspections at abortion clinics, fearing it would jeopardize patient privacy by making it easy to uncover details about mental health history, abortion care history, and HIV status.

As previously reported in Mother Jones, Scott had promised to allocate $26 million in state funds to deal with the health crisis, part of which would pay for CDC Zika prevention kits that include two kinds of mosquito repellent, tablets that kill mosquitos in water, and condoms. He has also said his office and Florida’s Department of Health were coordinating to go door to door in an effort to educate women in areas of concern about the risks Zika poses. It’s unclear whether any of those plans have been enacted.

The state could still appeal the decision, but because Scott ultimately decided to drop further legal action in this case, allowing for the injunction, it seems unlikely. Scott’s spokeswoman told ABC News that the governor is reviewing the order, and maintained that “Scott is a pro-life governor who believes in the sanctity of life.”

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate