In yet another of this year’s victories for reproductive rights advocates, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle on Thursday made permanent a temporary injunction he issued in June against a Florida abortion law fought by Planned Parenthood on constitutional grounds. The law, passed earlier this year by the Republican-dominated legislature, was to have gone into effect on July 1. But Hinkle had blocked it at the last minute while he studied it more closely. State officials have not yet said whether they will take the case to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
The judge’s ruling was no surprise. Hinkle had noted in his temporary injunction in June:
“The Supreme Court has repeatedly said that a government cannot prohibit indirectly—by withholding otherwise-available public funds—conduct that the government could not constitutionally prohibit directly.”
Lillian Tamayo, CEO of Planned Parenthood of South, East and North Florida, said: "We are grateful the court stepped in to stop Rick Scott in his tracks and protect access to health care. If this law had gone into effect, it would have made a bad situation even worse."
Planned Parenthood had filed suit challenging three provisions in the law:
• Requiring that state officials inspect half the medical records at facilities that provide abortions in Florida each year—affecting an estimated 35,000 women annually. This prying into private medical records would have made it easy to discover details about a woman’s HIV status, abortion history, and mental health treatments.
• Barring all public funding of non-abortion preventive services to abortion providers. Although Florida does not provide any money directly to Planned Parenthood, the organization’s lawyers said the law would have cost it about half a million dollars for preventive services such as providing pelvic exams and contraceptives, supporting youth outreach programs, screening for HIV, and checking for breast and cervical cancer. The provision would have made it impossible for Medicaid patients to use Planned Parenthood for preventive and other non-abortion services. (Florida and federal law already forbid the use of public funds to finance abortion.)
• Defining pregnancy trimesters in such a way that Planned Parenthood said would reduce the time period when it is allowed to provide abortions.
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/d9RPWrKa9QQ/-Planned-Parenthood-wins-another-victory-as-federal-judge-permanently-enjoins-Florida-law
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