Arizona Planned Parenthood Law Overturned.....

[nhboy]

Link to original article.

"A federal judge overturned a state law in Arizona on Friday that banned Planned Parenthood from contracting with Medicaid.

"A state may not restrict a beneficiary's right to select any qualified provider for reasons wholly unrelated to the provider's ability to deliver Medicaid services," U.S. District Judge Neil Wake wrote in the ruling.

The law, passed by Republican legislators in Arizona in May 2012, blocked Medicaid family planning funds from flowing to any health organization that provides abortions. It effectively prevented thousands of low-income Medicaid recipients in Arizona from choosing Planned Parenthood as a health and family planning provider.

A nearly identical law in Indiana was struck down by a federal appeals court in October, because federal Medicaid law says that states cannot discriminate against an otherwise qualified provider because it offers a legal medical service.

Susan B. Anthony List, a national anti-abortion organization, expressed deep disappointment with the judge's decision in Arizona."

 

[Tilted]

Well, that's a shocker.

I get it. Plenty of people don't like it that abortions are, with some limitations, illegal. They don't like it that the Supreme Court has found a constitutional right to have certain kinds of abortions. But that is the current state of the law in the United States. And so long as it is, the government can't try to punish entities for exercising that right - or, in the case of Planned Parenthood, for helping others exercise that right. The government doesn't have to provide funding for abortions of course. But, if funding is available on a general basis for certain other services, and an entity such as Planned Parenthood qualifies to receive it according to the rules that apply to every other entity that might wish to receive it, then Planned Parenthood can't be denied those funds (or be prohibited from being the chosen provider for beneficiaries) based on the reality that it also performs abortions.

If the law says that people in general qualify for Food Stamps based on X, Y, and Z, particular people can't be denied those Food Stamps (if they qualify) because they exercise a constitutional right - e.g., because they speak out against the current administration or because they own firearms. And, for the most part, those X, Y, and Z qualifications for receiving the benefits can't amount to limitations on such constitutional rights. That's not strictly true based on the doctrine of unconstitutional conditions, but it is in so far as it would apply in that instance.

Planned Parenthood may be politically disfavored to some. But it can't be denied access to the same funds on the same terms as are available to others based on its not being liked. It can't be denied funds of general availability because it performs abortions (which are constitutionally protected) any more than someone can be denied funds of general availability because they pray to a disfavored God (which is constitutionally protected).