The conservative-leaning Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears federal appeals from Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee, isn’t usually the source of good news. But on Wednesday, the Sixth Circuit came through: It nixed an Ohio law aimed at crippling Planned Parenthood.
In 2016, Republican Gov. John Kasich signed a bill to strip Planned Parenthood centers of non-abortion related funding—the kind of funding that supports “programs for mothers’ and infants’ health, HIV counseling and testing, and sex education.” The law would have cost Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio and Southwest Ohio nearly $1.5 million in annual funding.
The specific mechanism for starving Planned Parenthood of funding?
The law at issue ... required the Ohio Department of Health to ensure that funding it received through six non-abortion-related federal programs was not used to fund any entity that performs or promotes non-therapeutic abortions.
The law has been on hold since a May 2016 district court ruling.
According to Ohio, Planned Parenthood was claiming some kind of constitutional guarantee to funding. Fortunately, the three-judge appellate panel listened to Planned Parenthood’s arguments rather than Ohio’s offensively facile characterization.
U.S. Circuit Judge Helene White said the two Planned Parenthood affiliates in the case claimed no such thing.
“What they do claim is a right not to be penalized in the administration of government programs based on protected activity outside the programs,” she wrote for the three-judge panel.
White said the law had violated Planned Parenthood’s due process rights by requiring a health care provider surrender its right to provide legal abortions as a condition of participating in programs that have nothing to do with abortion.
In other words: Ohio, abortion is legal, so you cannot withhold federal funding for other services from an organization simply because some of their clinics provide abortions.
From here, the losers have two options: They can seek en banc, a.k.a. full-court, review, or they can appeal to the Supreme Court by submitting a petition for certiorari, also called a cert petition.
Dan Tierney, a spokesman for Republican Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, who defended the law in court, said his office was reviewing the ruling to determine whether to seek further appellate review.
Given how often the right’s taken aim at Planned Parenthood funding over the past few years, this is a big win. Especially given the panel’s composition:
Two of the three judges — Eugene E. Siler Jr. and Helene N. White — ruling on the case were appointed by Republican presidents, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, respectively. The other judge, Eric L. Clay, was appointed by Democrat Bill Clinton.
When a George W. Bush-appointed judge writes the opinion protecting Planned Parenthood funding—well, let’s just call it auspicious.