Texas health officials have decided to cut Planned Parenthood out of the state Medicaid program entirely because of issues revealed in an undercover video, the Houston Chronicle has learned.
In a letter to be sent to state Planned Parenthood affiliates on Monday, officials say they made their decision because a video released earlier this summer showed that the women's health organization alters its abortion process to preserve fetal organs and allows private citizens into its lab wearing only gloves.
The private citizens allowed into the lab were the secret videographers, who were actors posing as people trying to buy fetal tissue for medical research.
"The State has determined that you and your Planned Parenthood affiliates are no longer capable of performing medical services in a professionally competent, safe, legal and ethical manner," writes Stuart Bowen, the inspector general of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.
The video was part of a series released by the anti-abortion Center for Medical Progress which have caused a nationwide firestorm and incited at least four separate investigations in Texas. The health commission inquiry was ordered by Gov. Greg Abbott.
Texas stopped funding Planned Parenthood clinics three years ago, but kicking the organization off Medicaid will mean millions of women will no longer receive women's health services at all and since this is federal money for a federal program, Texas may not actually be able to do this.
We'll see, but I'm wondering how long moderate red state voters are going to put up with this when it starts affecting them personally.
The answer of course is "as long as you keep voting in Republicans."
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