Naked City

Planned Parenthood doesn't use public funding to provide abortion services -- after all, that's against the law. But that hasn't stopped the state from trying to cut the women's health services provider from its family-planning program, an effort that could affect 33 clinics and at least 115,000 women. Last week, several Texas Planned Parenthood affiliates filed suit over Rider 8 in the just-passed state-budget bill, which prohibits abortion providers from receiving any public funding -- including federal funds -- for any purpose. Planned Parenthood stands to lose $13 million, the bulk of which it uses to provide care to low-income women seeking services like Pap smears and mammograms; only 2% of its patients request abortions.

The lawsuit comes on the heels of a letter sent by the Texas Commissioner of Health, Dr. Eduardo Sanchez, warning Planned Parenthood to either stop providing abortions by June 30 or lose existing funding. (Rider 8 doesn't become law until the new state fiscal year begins Sept. 1.) On Monday, U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks granted a temporary restraining order exempting Planned Parenthood from the deadline, a decision that Danielle Tierney of the group's Austin affiliate calls "a step in the right direction." A hearing for a preliminary injunction has been set for July 25.

Planned Parenthood's lawsuit claims that Rider 8 -- co-authored by Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, and Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands -- violates federal statutes as well as women's constitutional (yet increasingly theoretical) right to an abortion. Plaintiffs include the Planned Parenthood affiliates in Austin, Waco, Dallas/Fort Worth, San Antonio, Houston, and El Paso. (Right now, no Austin-area Planned Parenthood facility provides abortions, but the affiliate plans to break ground this fall on a new facility that would perform abortions and thus be covered by Rider 8.)

Texas is not the first state where legislators have tried to gouge Planned Parenthood's funding. In Missouri, the federal 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a state law withholding funding from that state's affiliates. But in Missouri the funding in question came from the state itself, not from the federal government, says Planned Parenthood's attorney Jim George. In Texas, state legislators have interfered with federal money, which George argues is a violation of the U.S. Constitution; the Title X, Medicaid, and Title XX funding programs do not authorize limitations like those imposed by Rider 8. "We have a longstanding relationship with the state," says Tierney. "They have no evidence we misused any money."