A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday reversed a ruling that prevented Arkansas from cutting off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood following the release of controversial videos secretly recorded by an anti-abortion group.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis reversed a federal judge's ruling forbidding Arkansas from carrying through with Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson's directive to suspend Medicaid reimbursements to a Planned Parenthood affiliate.
That ruling by U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker in Little Rock had come in a lawsuit by three women who claimed Arkansas violated their rights under the federal Medicaid law to choose any qualified provider offering services they were seeking.
But by a 2-1 vote, a 8th Circuit ruled that the provision of the Medicaid law that the women relied on does not unambiguously create a federal right for individual patients that they could enforce in court.
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