Court rules against Kansas in Planned Parenthood case

WICHITA, Kan.

Kansas can’t cut Medicaid funds to a Planned Parenthood affiliate over videos anti-abortion activists secretly recorded in 2015, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision leaves in place a lower court’s preliminary injunction that blocked Kansas from ending the contract. It is the fifth of six circuits to uphold the right of patients to receive health care from their preferred qualified provider.

The decision applies to Kansas’ Medicaid contract with Planned Parenthood Great Plains, which has two health centers in Kansas and three in Missouri. However, the appeals panel sent back to the lower court a related injunction involving the state’s effort to terminate its contract with Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region, which serves some Kansas patients at its clinic in Joplin, Mo.