New Orleans, La., Jan 18, 2019 / 18:59 pm
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated Thursday a previous injunction barring Texas from stripping Planned Parenthood affiliates of Medicaid funding.
The injunction was based largely on undercover videos released by the pro-life group Center for Medical Progress (CMP) during the summer of 2015 which show Planned Parenthood workers negotiating the sale of body parts from aborted children.
"The [Texas Office of Inspector General]...concluded, based on the videos, that [Planned Parenthood affiliates] at a minimum violated federal standards regarding fetal tissue research and standards of medical ethics by allowing doctors to alter abortion procedures to retrieve tissue for research purposes or allowing the researchers themselves to perform the procedures," Circuit Judge Edith Jones wrote in the court's Jan. 17 opinion.
Many media reports since 2015 have characterized CMP's undercover videos as "deceptively" or "heavily" edited, undercutting their credibility.