2020 Victories: Reeling Planned Parenthood Strikes Out at Ninth Circuit in Bid To Keep Title X Funding

This is the latest installment of our year-end victories series looking back at some of the numerous victories by the ACLJ in 2020.

This year, Planned Parenthood STRUCK OUT at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

President Trump dealt a painful blow to Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry last year through a new rule blocking up to $60 million under the Title X program from going to abortion providers.

Title X is a federal program dedicated to providing preconception family planning services to the nation’s neediest citizens.

The ACLJ filed public comments supporting the new rule and asked our members to do the same. In response, ACLJ members submitted an astounding 13,000+ individual comments, accounting for over 10% of all comments received by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Desperate, Planned Parenthood and a group of pro-abortion states filed lawsuits to overturn the rule. The case ended up at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. And that’s where the ground crumbled beneath the abortion giant’s feet.

First, Planned Parenthood lost before a 3-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit – a stunning loss, in light of how reliable the Ninth Circuit has generally been for Planned Parenthood.

It appealed that loss to an 11-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc. Again, it resoundingly lost. Reeling, Planned Parenthood urged that panel to rehear the case or for the Full Court (all 29 judges) to hear the case. It LOST AGAIN. In fact, Planned Parenthood couldn’t get a single judge of the full Ninth Circuit to vote to rehear the case – NOT ONE.

We took action, filing a barrage of critical amicus briefs supporting the rule and disputing Planned Parenthood’s claims in that case. The Ninth Circuit agreed with our arguments.

Planned Parenthood never had a legitimate claim to any of this money. The federal statute enacting Title X left no wiggle room: “None of the funds appropriated under this title shall be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning.”

This time Planned Parenthood not only lost, but not a single judge on the entire Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals even wanted to vote on hearing the case. It was an utter debacle for the abortion giant.

The new rule, and subsequent final decision of the Ninth Circuit, defunded Planned Parenthood of nearly $60 million in taxpayer funding.

But it’s still just a drop in the bucket. Planned Parenthood received a record $616.8 MILLION DOLLARS in taxpayer funding and posted a whopping $110.5 million in pure profits in its most recent annual report. But Planned Parenthood wants it all. It wants every taxpayer penny it can get to expand its extreme abortion empire. Its affiliates even applied for and received COVID-19 relief funds they weren’t entitled to. Now Planned Parenthood is appealing the defunding all the way to the Supreme Court; and if the Court takes up the case, we will file again. We will not back down.

Now more than ever, we’re fighting Planned Parenthood’s efforts at every turn.

To help the ACLJ continue to have the resources we need to defeat Planned Parenthood and save defenseless unborn babies, please consider making a Tax-Deductible donation to the ACLJ through our year-end Matching Challenge. Your gift will be DOUBLED dollar-for-dollar through the end of the year.

You can read more in the ACLJ’s 2020 Victories Series here.

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