Indiana Judge Lets Planned Parenthood Defunding Stand

By Irin Carmon | May 11, 2011 | 7:05pm

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Planned Parenthood had asked the U.S. District Court court to delay enforcement of a new Indiana law denying Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood while the organization challenges its constitutionality.

ACLU and Planned Parenthood argues that forcing doctors to say life begins at conception and that a fetus can feel pain around 20 weeks violates their First Amendment rights, and that the immediate defunding would violate existing contracts. The Indianapolis Star notes, “Typically a judge’s reluctance to even temporarily put a law on hold does not bode well for the plaintiff, in this case Planned Parenthood.”