(Emily Ramshaw and Thanh Tan, Texas Tribune)
Planned Parenthood branches in Texas have filed a federal lawsuit in an effort to block their exclusion from the state’s Women’s Health Program.
After Texas’ Republican leaders indicated their intent to start enforcing a state rule that bans “affiliates” of abortion providers from participating in the Medicaid-funded contraception and cancer-screening program, the Obama administration pulled federal financing from the program. Gov. Rick Perry has vowed that the state will find the money to continue the program without federal help — and that the rule banning Planned Parenthood clinics will stand. No clinics participating in the program have performed abortions.
The lawsuit, filed today in Austin, asks the court for an injunction to stop enforcement of the rule so that the Planned Parenthood clinics would be able to remain in the program past April 30. (Read more at Texas Tribune)
Houston City Council Approves
Funding for Family Planning
The city of Houston has passed a measure to help fund family planning for women who can’t afford things like birth control. The move comes as Planned Parenthood fights to get its funding back from the state.
Health and family planning issues have been controversial at the federal and state level. No one expected it to trickle all the way down to the city level, but that’s what exactly what happened Wednesday. (See more at KTRK 13 News)
OTHER HEADLINES:
- Parents Learn About Proposed HISD Recess Policy (KTRK 13 News)
- Houston School Investigates After Students, Sex Offender Trade Letters (Houston Chronicle)
- Soccer Stadium Will Bring Philanthropy To The East End (KUHF Public Radio)
- Need More Water? Build More Buckets (State Impact Texas)
- Stable Habitats Sought for Endangered Houston Toads (Houston Chronicle)
- Houston Bicyclist Willing to Ride in Circles for His Cause (Houston Chronicle)
- Sneak Peek: New Menninger Clinic Mental Health Epicenter Redefines the Status Quo (Houston Culture Map)
OPINONS ON THE NEWS:
Looking at What Is In Our Hearts & Minds
- One For All And All For The Group?
(Marcelo Gleiser, KUHF Public Radio)
The Hunger Games books by Suzanne Collins feature a theme about self-sacrifice, or what drives a person to sacrifice his/her life for someone else. This week, famous biologist Edward O. Wilson published his new book, which has been firing up a major controversy among his peers about the evolution of altruism. - Tyler and Trayvon, Continued…
(Bill Keller, New York Times)
Hate crime laws say we will punish you for the act, and then we will punish you more or less on top of that depending on what was in your heart. That, to me, strays into a kind of social engineering that I don’t think societies are very good at.