Planned Parenthood fight not worth battle

Fighting Planned Parenthood isn’t worth the battle, but that doesn’t seem to stop officials from taking up arms.

In December 2015, Gov. Greg Abbott pledged to defund Planned Parenthood. Now, after a year, the state has issued a final notice to the healthcare organization. Planned Parenthood could lose its $3.1 million Medicaid funding.

The whole battle between the state and Planned Parenthood has been a frustrating, arduous ordeal — all over something that taxpayers don’t even pay for.

It’s all brought on by the abortion services provided by Planned Parenthood. That’s done by a separate entity from the Medicaid-eligible health programs, and no public dollars fund it.

The governor's office says Planned Parenthood is “no longer capable of performing medical services in a professionally competent, safe, legal and ethical manner” after allegations last year that the organization sold fetal tissue for research.

Planned Parenthood has already filed a lawsuit. Federal officials warned the state that booting the healthcare provider from Medicaid could be illegal. Other states have failed in attempts to do the same thing.

So all this trouble could be for nothing.

We get that some state officials really don’t like Planned Parenthood, but couldn’t all the energy and taxpayer money in this fight be used somewhere else? Maybe to fix the broken Child Protective Services?

It would be a better use of state’s time and money.

This story was originally published December 21, 2016 at 6:07 PM with the headline "Planned Parenthood fight not worth battle."