Judge orders Louisiana to keep funding Planned Parenthood

By Paige Winfield Cunningham, Paige Winfield Cunningham

Published December 20, 2015

A federal judge has ruled that Louisiana must keep funding Planned Parenthood for the next two weeks, blocking an effort by Gov. Bobby Jindal to halt the group's Medicaid contracts.

U.S. District Judge John W. deGravelles issued a temporary restraining order taking effect Monday, which bars the state's Department of Health and Hospitals from stripping Planned Parenthood of funding for at least 14 days. He wrote that if Jindal were allowed to carrying out his aim, 5,200 Medicaid patients who visit Planned Parenthood would find their healthcare unnecessarily disrupted.

"For decades, [Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast] has served numerous at-risk individuals and helped DHH combat a host of diseases, and, in the process, become the regular provider of over 5,000 women," deGravelles wrote. "This court 'believes that ... vulnerable population[s] should only be uprooted if practically necessary and legally warranted.'"

Soon after controversy erupted during the summer over Planned Parenthood's participation in supplying fetal tissue for research, Jindal announced his administration would prevent the women's health and abortion provider from receiving Medicaid funding for providing services to low-income patients.