Outraged by videos that surfaced this summer purporting to show Planned Parenthood officials negotiating the sale of fetal body parts, Idaho lawmakers say they’re determined to target the group when the Legislature reconvenes in January.
Conservative lawmakers are mad as hell and aim to make Planned Parenthood suffer.
While we respect and support lawmakers who value human life and Idaho values, it appears legislators are setting up taxpayers for another legal disaster if they target Planned Parenthood or create new obstacles to abortion – something the courts have ruled constitutional regardless of moral opinions.
Can Idaho really afford more legal fees defending knee-jerk legislation?
The scenario is already playing out in Arkansas, where lawmakers voided the state’s contract with Planned Parenthood and cut off Medicaid services for patients.
In a blow to those efforts, a federal judge on Friday issued an injunction ordering the state to pay for the medical care of three residents who sued, and this week the group asked the judge to expand the ruling to all people who’d be affected by the state’s legislation.
Expect a similar result in Idaho if lawmakers seek to block Planned Parenthood funding.
Why?
Like Arkansas, Idaho has virtually no relationship or ability to control Planned Parenthood because it does not pay for or get any services from the group.
The federal government holds the purse strings through Medicaid, offering reimbursements for medically necessary services such as “office visits, blood tests, immunizations, lab tests, pregnancy tests, contraception and ultrasounds,” Idaho Department of Health and Welfare Director Dick Armstrong wrote in an email to lawmakers last week.
If lawmakers’ aim is to prevent abortions, a bill targeting Planned Parenthood is a misguided route. Medicaid paid for just two abortions in Idaho since 2012 at a cost of $108. Medicaid pays for abortions only in unusual circumstances, like when a woman’s life is in danger or the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest.
And Planned Parenthood in Idaho says it doesn’t have a fetal tissue program like the one that caused the hubbub in the videos.
So what, exactly, do lawmakers think they’ll accomplish by targeting the group? The lawmakers can’t say yet.
Perhaps that’s because they’re seeing fire when there isn’t even a whiff of smoke.
There’s simply no evidence Planned Parenthood has violated any state or federal laws here, Republican Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter said when he declined to investigate the group’s dealings after the videos surfaced.
But that’s done little to quell the 30 lawmakers who urged the governor to investigate.
For these lawmakers, the facts and the law don’t seem to matter much. Take, for example, the Legislature’s anti-abortion law of 2011 – passed despite warnings from the attorney general that it was unconstitutional. The state spent more than $1 million in legal fees defending the bill and eventually lost the case.
Add that to the half-million dollars the state spent on a failed bid to block same-sex marriage. As the Supreme Court made crystal clear this summer, Idaho’s ban violated the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Legislature would be better served to realize the courts have spoken when it comes to abortion and focus on matters it can control – matters that affect the daily lives of Idahoans in much more direct ways.
We’d much rather spend our tax money helping schools and building roads than paying lawyers to defend do-nothing legislation.
