Complete Debacle: Planned Parenthood Strikes Out at Ninth Circuit in Its Attempts To Keep $60 Million of Our Tax Dollars

There may not be any baseball at the moment, but after three strikes, Planned Parenthood is out at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Last year we told you how the Trump Administration dealt a painful blow to Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses through a new rule blocking up to $60 million of our tax dollars under the Title X program from going to abortion providers. The ACLJ filed public comments supporting the new rule and we asked you to do the same – which you did in unbelievable numbers. In fact, ACLJ members submitted over 13,000 individual comments and accounted for more than 10% of all comments received by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

But Planned Parenthood doesn’t know when it’s beat. It, along with a group of pro-abortion states, petulantly stamped its foot, filing lawsuits to have the defunding of Planned Parenthood overturned. After they predictably first won at the district court level, the case went up to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals – where the wheels started coming off the track for Planned Parenthood.

At the ACLJ, we filed numerous amicus briefs in this case, and the Ninth Circuit agreed with our arguments.

First, Planned Parenthood and its pro-abortion state posse lost before a 3-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit – a stunning loss in and of itself because of how reliable the Ninth Circuit has been for Planned Parenthood. It then appealed that loss to an 11-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc. Again, it resoundingly lost. Desperate, it again asked that panel to rehear the case or for the Full Court (all 29 judges of the Ninth Circuit) to hear the case. It LOST AGAIN. Not only did it lose, but not a single judge on the entire Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals even wanted to vote on hearing the case. The Ninth Circuit’s order stated, “The full court has been advised of the Petitions, and no Judge has requested a vote on whether to rehear the matter as a full court. The Petitions are DENIED.”

It appears even the Ninth Circuit is sick of Planned Parenthood’s tactics. This was an absolute and utter debacle for Planned Parenthood.

The reality is Planned Parenthood was never intended to have gotten any of this money in the first place. Title X is a federal program dedicated to providing preconception family planning services to the nation’s neediest citizens. The federal statute enacting the Title X program couldn’t state it any clearer: “None of the funds appropriated under this title shall be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning.”

That means at no point should those funds have ever been given to Planned Parenthood – the nation’s largest abortion business – or any other abortion clinics. The HHS rule finally put an end to whatever loopholes that had allowed abortionists to siphon monies they had no right to.

The new rule, and subsequent final decision of the Ninth Circuit, defunds Planned Parenthood of nearly $60 million in taxpayer funding. This is a major victory.

But it’s still just a drop in the bucket. We told you that in the last year alone, Planned Parenthood received a record $616.8 MILLION DOLLARS in taxpayer funding and posted a whopping $110.5 million in pure profits – its second most profitable year ever.

You might even wonder why it’s fighting so hard for the Title X money. The answer: clearly Planned Parenthood just wants it all. It is desperately trying to expand its extreme abortion empire across our country. And it wants every penny it can pry from the taxpayers’ pockets.

During the current Coronavirus pandemic when states have been ceasing all elective procedures in order to battle COVID-19 and conserve essential medical supplies, Planned Parenthood has been demanding special treatment. It recklessly filed lawsuits to continue performing abortions and sucking up personal protective equipment from frontline medical workers, putting everyone at risk.

No matter how many times Planned Parenthood cries that these regulations are an assault on women’s healthcare, never forget for one second that its actions consistently demonstrate it doesn’t care one iota about healthcare. Not for its patients. Not even for its employees. And certainly not for the more than 345,000 innocent babies it kills every year.

That’s why we’re fighting Planned Parenthood’s efforts at every turn, having recently filed 10 emergency amicus briefs in six different states to support efforts to stop elective abortions during this health crisis, just as we supported defunding it. And we’ve been winning in two crucial Circuit Court decisions.

At this point, having been repeatedly rejected at the Ninth Circuit on Title X funding, Planned Parenthood’s only recourse would be to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Hopefully, Planned Parenthood will accept defeat; but even if it doesn’t, we are ready, willing, and able to take them on at the Supreme Court.