Planned Parenthood no longer provides abortions in Texas, Louisiana and the other 10 states that have essentially banned abortion since the Supreme Court handed down its Dobbs v. Jackson decision in June 2022.
But the nonprofit is still providing other services for patients in those places, including cancer screening, contraception and the treatment of HIV and sexually transmitted infections. And Texas hasn’t given up on its long-running quest to force the group, which provides reproductive health care in its nearly 600 U.S. clinics, to stop operating within its borders.
Alongside an anonymous whistleblower identified as “Alex Doe,” Texas authorities are suing Planned Parenthood for more than US$1.8 billion in penalties and fees over what they allege are fraudulent Medicaid reimbursements.
Planned Parenthood denies having committed Medicaid fraud. It calls the lawsuit “another political attack.”
As an economist who studies the health effects of restricted abortion access, I believe that if Texas prevails in this federal lawsuit, Texans will have even less access to sexual and reproductive health care. Notably, the state ranked 50th in access to high-quality prenatal and maternal health care in 2022, and maternal mortality rates in the state more than doubled between 1999 and 2019. The elimination of Planned Parenthood facilities across Texas will likely exacerbate the dismal conditions of reproductive care in the state.