In December of 2016, Texas' inspector general announced that the state's Medicaid funds would no longer go toward Planned Parenthood, citing a series of secretly recorded videos that alleged the health care provider was illegally selling fetal tissue for profit. Though the videos were revealed to have been heavily edited and the House Oversight Committee's 2015 investigation into Planned Parenthood found no evidence of wrongdoing, anti-choice activists and legislators alike have continued to point to them as a reason why the organization should be defunded.

But on Tuesday, U.S. District Court judge Sam Sparks blocked Texas' defunding, saying there was no evidence Planned Parenthood has profited off aborted fetuses nor has the organization—as Texas officials had claimed—timed or altered abortions to obtain the tissue. This supports investigations in 13 states that have failed to find proof of the organization's selling fetal remains.

"A secretly recorded video, fake names, a grand jury indictment, Congressional investigations—these are the building blocks of a best-selling novel rather than a case concerning the interplay of federal and state authority through the Medicaid program," Sparks wrote in his decision. "Yet, rather than a villain plotting to take over the world, the subject of this case is the State of Texas' efforts to expel a group of health care providers from a social health care program for families and individuals with limited resources."

An estimated 12,500 Texan Medicaid patients currently receive services from the state's 30 Planned Parenthood clinics. Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards said in a statement to The New York Times that the decision was “a victory for Texas women."

“We will never back down, and we will never stop fighting for our patients," she added.

Following Tuesday's decision, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced his plans to appeal Sparks' ruling."Today's decision is disappointing and flies in the face of basic human decency," he said in a statement on his website. "No taxpayer in Texas should have to subsidize this repugnant and illegal conduct. We should never lose sight of the fact that, as long as abortion is legal in the United States, the potential for these types of horrors will continue."

Arkansas, Alabama, Kansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana have imposed similar blocks on efforts to defund Planned Parenthood. Though these are bright spots in the fight for women's health care, they could be endangered if the federal government succeeds in defunding Planned Parenthood as Donald Trump has promised.