Planned Parenthood has filed a lawsuit over an Ohio state law that stands to strip the organization of its federal funding to provide services like HIV and cancer screenings, domestic violence education and sex education for kids in the foster care and judicial system.
The law, signed by Gov. John Kasich in February, bars any organization from receiving federal funding if it provides abortions that are not medically necessary or from pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. When it goes into effect later this month, Planned Parenthood of Ohio, the largest abortion provider in the state, will lose $1.4 million, which it says does not go to fund its abortion services.
Planned Parenthood of Ohio and Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio Region’s lawsuit says the law is unconstitutional, claiming it could affect tens of thousands of Ohioans’ access to health care, disproportionally targeting minorities and low-income people.
“We are in court because everyone deserves access to quality, affordable, compassionate care no matter who you are or where you are from,” Iris E. Harvey, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio, says. “Let’s call this what it is, an attack on people who already have the least access to care, all in the name of politics.”
Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio serves 20 counties and says 75 percent of its patients are low-income.
In an amendment attached to the House bill, lawmakers redirected $250,000 into other community health organizations that do not provide abortions.
But Planned Parenthood claims these clinics aren’t immediately in a position to fill the health care gaps it would leave, which would include 70,000 free STD screenings it provides through a Centers for Disease Control program and 5,000 free HIV tests for populations at high risk for the virus.
“Even if other health care providers are eventually able to provide similar services,” the lawsuit reads, “many patients’ health care and access to other services will be disrupted because other providers are not prepared to assume responsibility for those services.”
On the other hand, if Planned Parenthood chooses to comply with the law to receive funding by ceasing to provide abortions at its Mount Auburn clinic, Cincinnati would become the largest metropolitan area in the country without an abortion provider. The organization argues that this also creates a constitutionally prohibited “undue burden” to obtain the procedure by forcing women to travel as far as Columbus or Cleveland.
The law is the latest in a series of laws passed under the Kasich administration targeting abortion providers. More than half of Ohio’s abortion clinics have closed since Kasich took office in 2011.
Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio filed another federal lawsuit against the state of Ohio law last September, claiming other recently passed restrictions involving changes in the abortion license renewal process and required patient-transfer agreements with private hospitals also unlawfully restricted a woman’s right to access abortion. That suit is ongoing.
This article appears in May 4-11, 2016.