Connecticut Attorney General William Tong is suing the Trump administration for attempting to cut federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
The wide-ranging budget bill passed by Republicans in July included language that barred Medicaid reimbursements to health care non-profits that got more than $1 million in reimbursements last year or that primarily offer reproductive health services. Planned Parenthood is both.
Democrats and pro-choice advocates have claimed it’s a backdoor abortion ban because it restricts access to the procedure in states like Connecticut, where abortion is still legal.
Planned Parenthood sued, and a judge ruled on Monday that the new law was unconstitutional, issuing an injunction to keep the money flowing as the case progresses.
Tong said his state would be violating Planned Parenthood’s First and Fifth Amendment rights by complying with the law.
“We've sued because it's unconstitutional for Congress and the President to tell us that we have to violate someone else's constitutional rights,” Tong said on Tuesday at Planned Parenthood of Southern New England in New Haven.
Planned Parenthood officials have said that without Medicaid reimbursements, they would have to close hundreds of locations — leaving low-income people without access to reproductive health care.
“Over 52,000 patients came to PPSNE in Connecticut last year for their care, and 46% of those patients, nearly 25,000 individuals, were insured by Husky Health, our state Medicaid program, to cover their services,” PPSNE Chief Policy and Advocacy Officer Gretchen Raffa said.
Supporters of the bill said it kept states from funding organizations that “choose political advocacy over patient care.”
The Hyde Amendment already prevents Medicaid from covering abortion.
“Republicans know this, but they just keep saying it over and over and over again until people believe it,” U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-3) said. “It's a deliberate attack. It was included in the big, ugly bill because Republicans do not like the fact that Planned Parenthood provides abortion services to anyone, anywhere, and they and their anti-choice cronies were not shy in taking credit for this attack. It is nothing more than vindictive political warfare with potentially deadly consequences.”
Connecticut is one of 23 states involved in the lawsuit.
