Anne here…

No, that headline does not contain a typo. Planned Parenthood and its defenders have been warding off legislative blows in lawsuits all over the country in the last several years, and things have been especially nasty in the last couple of years. In 2011 Indiana passed a law preventing any Medicaid funds from going to any organization whose work includes performing abortions. Obviously, Planned Parenthood was prominently in that law’s crosshairs, and a district judge in Indiana issued an injunction preventing the law from taking effect. The 7th Circuit Court of appeals affirmed the judge’s action so Indiana sought certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court, saying that Indiana’s law “excludes Planned Parenthood from Medicaid for a reason unrelated to its fitness to provide medical services, violating its patients’ statutory right to obtain medical care from the qualified provider of their choice.”

This appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was Indiana’s last-ditch effort to make the law effective.

It failed. This morning the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case. The 7th Circuit’s ruling in the matter, which affirmed the district judge’s grant of an injunction and prevented the law from taking effect, will stand permanently.

The same entities that back this law have been attacking Planned Parenthood all over the country. About a quarter of all states have passed these broad laws de-funding the organization. They don’t stop at objecting only to abortion services. They want to eliminate all public funding from Planned Parenthood regardless of the fact that the vast bulk of the services it provides have nothing at all to do with abortion. The district judge who granted the initial injunction pointed out that more than 9,300 Medicaid patients in Indiana go to Planned Parenthood clinics for routine medical exams, cancer screening and birth control. To defund Planned Parenthood for reasons other than its ability to provide these services makes no sense, especially since only three percent of the organization’s services are related to abortion.

The case was appealed based on the preliminary injunction. It now goes back to the original U.S. District Court for a full hearing on the merits of the case. Since preliminary injunctions are not granted unless there is a strong likelihood that a permanent one will be granted, the injunction is expected to become permanent.