HOUSTON– The state of Texas on Monday informed Planned Parenthood affiliates that it was cutting off the organization from the state’s Medicaid program — citing recently released undercover videos of as evidence of violations.
A letter from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission Office of the Inspector General went out Monday to inform affiliates they are believed to be “no longer capable of performing medical services in a professionally competent, safe, legal, and ethical manner,” according to a copy posted by The Dallas Morning News.
The organization has been under fire nationally since the videos began coming out this summer from an anti-abortion activist group. One video was shot in a Texas clinic.
Republicans have called for Planned Parenthood to be defunded at the federal level. Democrats have maintained federal dollars are already prohibited from going to abortions, and that Planned Parenthood provides important health care for women.
Planned Parenthood on Monday blasted the decision to cut Medicaid contracts for providing birth control, cancer screenings, HIV tests and preventative care, noting that a federal judge in Louisiana on Monday blocked a similar move.
“It is completely outrageous that Texas officials are using thoroughly discredited, fraudulent videos to cut women off from preventive health care,” Executive Vice President Dawn Laguens said in a statement. “We will fight back against this outrageous, malicious, political attack in Texas with everything we’ve got, and we will protect women’s access to the health care they need and deserve.”
Republicans in the House voted to create a select committee to investigate Planned Parenthood over the objections of Democrats.