Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Indiana Planned Parenthood funding restored

Notre Dame Law Professor Gerry Bradley analyzes why the federal district judge who at first upheld Indiana's recently passed law to defund Planned Parenthood first allowed it to stand, but has now caved to pressure from Obama's HHS secretary, so that funding has been restored to the largest abortion provider in the state of Indiana. He explains:

"The difference-maker was not anything the Indiana Civil Liberties Union lawyer or Planned Parenthood argued. The deciding factor — as, again, Judge Pratt practically conceded — was the intervention of HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Her deputy in charge of Medicaid, Donald Berwick, publicly announced on June 1 (during the pendency of the plaintiffs’ motion for an injunctive relief) that HHS “rejected” Indiana’s law. And this rejection decided the case for Judge Pratt.

This intervention was transparently political. Sebelius (through Berwick) adopted a novel and highly controversial reading of the Medicaid law, an interpretation which seems to be based not in law but on pro-choice ideology."

To read the full National Review article, click here.

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