Right-wing activists tee up two cases intended to strangle Planned Parenthood: analyst

Republicans have sought for decades to cut off federal funding for Planned Parenthood, a reproductive health care network that is a key provider of STD treatment, cancer screenings, and contraception — in large part because it is also one of the nation's largest abortion providers. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has stated it's one of his key goals. But if some GOP state officials and right-wing activists have their way, he might not even get the chance to.

That's because there's a pair of legal cases working their way through the courts that are intended to crush Planned Parenthood financially, forcing them to shutter their doors even without any federal action against them, Susan Rinkunas wrote for Slate.

The first case, she wrote, is already scheduled for the Supreme Court. "The legal question in Kerr v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic is whether Medicaid patients can sue over their right, outlined in the Medicaid Act, to choose 'any qualified provider' who accepts their insurance. In 2018, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster signed an executive order declaring that the state health department should deem abortion clinics unqualified because they also offer abortion. Letting them accept state funds, the Republican argued, 'results in the subsidy of abortion.' Planned Parenthood South Atlantic sued the state on behalf of a Medicaid patient, and Alliance Defending Freedom is representing South Carolina."

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If the Supreme Court rules in favor of South Carolina, it would technically not alter the federal requirement for Medicaid to cover Planned Parenthood — but it would strip individual patients of the right to sue when states violate it, leaving only the federal government to enforce patients' rights, which is something the Trump administration, she noted, is unlikely to do.

The second case, which is set to go to trial later this year in Texas, uses a bizarre legal theory to try to force Planned Parenthood to pay a crippling $2 billion under the False Claims Act. "In United States ex rel. Doe v. Planned Parenthood Federation of America, an anonymous plaintiff, Alex Doe, accuses Planned Parenthood of violating the federal False Claims Act by improperly billing Texas Medicaid for $10 million in — again, nonabortion — services it provided during yearslong litigation about whether they could remain in the program. (False Claims Act cases typically involve accusations of billing for health services an entity didn’t provide, which isn’t what happened here.)"

The anonymous plaintiff has actually been revealed to be David Daleiden, the anti-abortion activist who in 2015 used deceptive hidden cameras to falsely make it appear Planned Parenthood health care workers were illegally selling fetal remains. A Houston grand jury empaneled to criminally investigate Planned Parenthood over the allegations in 2016 not only cleared Planned Parenthood, but instead indicted Daleiden and an associate for tampering with government records, although a Texas judge later threw out that indictment.

Daleiden "filed the suit in 2021 in Amarillo, where Planned Parenthood does not have any clinics, but where he was guaranteed to draw Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk — the same jurist who tried to revoke Food and Drug Administration approval of the abortion pill and who gutted confidential birth control access for minors," noted Rinkunas. "Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton joined the suit in 2022 and Kacsmaryk could oversee the jury trial sometime this year."

The fact that Republican-affiliated lawsuits continue to target Planned Parenthood, despite abortion bans already limiting the procedures they claim offend them in GOP-governed states, show they always were against more than abortion, wrote Rinkunas: "It’s about intrauterine devices and HIV testing and estrogen therapy — it’s about limiting people’s autonomy."