[V]ermont’s attorney general has joined a coalition of 14 other states and the District of Columbia in a friend-of-the-court brief opposing the defunding of Planned Parenthood.
TJ Donovan and others filed the brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on Wednesday opposing an Ohio law that blocks state funding to organizations that provide abortion services.
Two Ohio affiliates of Planned Parenthood sued the state of Ohio over the law in 2016. The U.S. District Court for Ohio sided with Planned Parenthood in August, and Ohio appealed to the Sixth Circuit. Donovan said it is “hard to say” if the case will make it to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Ohio law says the state cannot contract with providers of abortion services, meaning that Ohio will not give state and federal money to places such as Planned Parenthood. The states claim that violates the institution’s constitutional right to due process.
The law also prohibits project materials from an infertility prevention program from being distributed to any entity that “affiliates” with organizations that perform elective abortions, according to the brief. The states say that is a violation of free speech protected under the First Amendment.
“Women have a constitutional right to make their own health care decisions, and that’s something for me that is non-negotiable,” Donovan said. “Any attempt to erode that right or to limit that right, I will oppose.”
The brief says that more than 15 states since 2009 have passed laws or adopted executive actions that defund family-planning services, and that Congress just this year proposed to defund Planned Parenthood by withholding money from treating Medicaid patients.
“The law seeks to leverage public funds to pressure grantees (such as Planned Parenthood) to refrain from providing access to constitutionally protected abortion services outside of the contours of the funded programs,” the brief says.
“Moreover, the law would impose an undue burden on women’s right to access those services if plaintiffs succumbed to the pressure,” the brief says.
“(We) seek to ensure the availability of safe abortion services from accessible providers within each of the states, as well as the ability of providers of such services” to speak to their patients about abortion services, the brief says.
Planned Parenthood is the main provider of abortion services in Vermont. Across 10 Vermont counties, the organization provides various health care services to up to 26 percent of women of childbearing age, according to data from Planned Parenthood of Northern New England.
Gov. Phil Scott supported Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who signed the law in question, in the Republican primary for president. But he said Thursday that he has been a longtime supporter of funding Planned Parenthood.
“I truly believe in the good work that Planned Parenthood has done for women’s health, and that we shouldn’t be defunding, so I’m a supporter of continuing to fund Planned Parenthood,” Scott said.
