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Judge Blocks Florida Abortion Law
August 19, 2016
A federal judge Thursday issued a permanent injunction against a new Florida abortion law that would have led to increased inspections of clinic records and prevented abortion providers from receiving public money for other health services.
The ruling made permanent a preliminary injunction that U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle issued June 30.
Planned Parenthood filed the lawsuit after the Republican-controlled Legislature and Gov. Rick Scott approved the controversial law early this year. Hinkle blocked part of the law that would have required state health officials to inspect half of all abortion patients’ records. He also ruled against perhaps the law’s most-controversial provision, which sought to prevent public funds from going to abortion providers.
Clinics already cannot receive tax dollars to pay for abortions, but the new law also would have cut off funding that providers receive to offer other women’s health services.
“The defendants must not terminate any grant, contract, or other funding device based on the enjoined provisions and must not fail to renew any grant, contract, or other funding device that, but for the enjoined provisions, would have been renewed or would be renewed,” Hinkle wrote Thursday.
Lawyers for the state argued that the ban on using public funds for other services was permissible because it did not impose an “undue burden” on a women’s right to an abortion. After Hinkle issued the preliminary injunction in June, Senate bill sponsor Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, called his ruling “a clear infringement on both the Legislature’s constitutional authority to appropriate taxpayer dollars, and our responsibility to properly regulate medical facilities.”
But Planned Parenthood argued that the law, in part, would prevent women from getting needed health services, such as cancer screenings and tests for sexually transmitted diseases.
In a statement released Thursday evening, Barbara A. Zdravecky, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida, called Hinkle’s ruling a “victory” for people who rely on Planned Parenthood for services. “For many people, Planned Parenthood is the only place they can turn to,” she said in the statement. “We may be the only place they can go in their community, or the only place that offers the screening or birth control method they need.”
by The News Service of Florida
Comments
4 Responses to “Judge Blocks Florida Abortion Law”
With all the free birth control out there, how can a person even get pregnant these days? Save yourself some grief people. GET YOURSELF SOME BIRTH CONTROL!!! By doing this you can prevent murdering your own flesh and blood!
Does abortion =murder? In my humble opinion I would never terminate a pregnancy.
May you be able to live with your decision.
Good. I saw a recent report about similar changes to laws in Texas that said: “Texas experienced a sudden and dramatic spike in pregnancy-related deaths in 2011, the same year the state slashed funding for Planned Parenthood and women’s health programs, according to a study in the September issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology”.
STD and cancer should be the least of their concern. Any funding from the state should be cut out, period. Let them depend on private donations. I am sure there are rich pro-choice people who would dump money into the murder factories around the state. I like how in a previous article a commenter speaks about pest control comparing an unborn human fetus to roaches (ie not killing them because they are alive if you are pro-life), that is the mentality of our society, very sad. Quit sleeping around and you won’t need an abortion. Simple as that, because less than 5% of abortions are due to rape or incest. We live in a sinful sinful world. God bless the little children, it is a shame the first challenge to your survival is making it past being murdered by your own mother, being torn apart in utero. Your second is having parents who even care about you at all. God loves you.