Planned Parenthood seeks class-action status to keep funding

Planned Parenthood is asking a federal court to broaden its recent ruling that allowed the group to temporarily keep some of its Medicaid funding in Arkansas.

The women’s health provider is requesting class-action status in its recent lawsuit in Arkansas, in which the group challenged that the state’s decision to end its Medicaid contract.

{mosads}A federal judge in Arkansas sided with Planned Parenthood on Friday, issuing a temporary injunction ordering Gov. Asa Hutchinson to continue funding for the three Medicaid patients who signed on to the lawsuit. Under federal law, Medicaid dollars cannot fund abortions.

The judge’s decision, however, pertains only to the three patients named as “Jane Doe” on the lawsuit.

Planned Parenthood told the court that the decision would have had an impact on about 500 of its Medicaid patients in the state last year and more than 1,000 the year before.

Arkansas’s solicitor general announced Monday that he would appeal the decision.

Friday’s ruling delivered an early victory that the group now hopes to apply to other states where it faces similar battles.

Planned Parenthood has also sued the governors of Alabama and Louisiana, who have vowed to defund the group by canceling Medicaid contracts. 

The group, which receives most of its federal funding through Medicaid, has been under intense scrutiny since July, when it was first accused by an anti-abortion group of attempting to profit from fetal tissue donations.