For more than two years, the ACLU of Indiana and Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky (PPINK) have testified against a law that would have prohibited Medicaid patients from taking advantage of Planned Parenthood services, including preventive care such as Pap tests, breast and testicular exams, birth control, and STD testing and treatment. The State favored such a restrictive law because it opposed letting Medicaid patients access their health care from a provider that also provided abortions, even though abortions are not provided using taxpayer dollars.
No person should be denied the right to necessary medical care.
This State law put politics about abortions above women's reproductive health. When the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal court preliminary injunction against denying Medicaid funding to the PPINK clinics, the State challenged it. But, after the U.S. Supreme Court took a stand for women's health by refusing to hear the case, federal Judge Tanya Walton Pratt made the injunction permanent. Judge Pratt's order followed an agreement between the State and PPINK preventing the State from violating Medicaid's "freedom of choice" provision.
Because of the ACLU of Indiana, thousands of Medicaid patients now have the right to choose their health care provider and access important medical care.
