A federal lawsuit in Texas in opposition to Deliberate Parenthood has an online of ties to conservative activist Leonard Leo, whose decades-long effort to steer the U.S. courtroom system to the appropriate overturned Roe v. Wade, yielding the largest rollback of reproductive well being entry in half a century.
Introduced by an nameless whistleblower and later joined by Texas Lawyer Normal Ken Paxton, the go well with alleges the Deliberate Parenthood Federation of America and three Deliberate Parenthood associates defrauded the Texas and Louisiana Medicaid packages by amassing $17 million for companies supplied whereas it fought state efforts to take away it as an permitted supplier.
The go well with claims violations of the False Claims Act, an obscure however highly effective legislation defending the federal government from fraud, and seeks $1.8 billion in penalties from Deliberate Parenthood, in response to a movement that legal professionals for the whistleblower filed in federal courtroom in 2023.
The lawsuit builds on efforts over years by the spiritual proper and politicians who oppose abortion to ship blows to Deliberate Parenthood — which supplies sexual and reproductive well being care at practically 600 websites nationwide — now bolstered by Leo’s work reshaping the American judiciary.
Anti-abortion teams and their allies secured a generational victory in 2022 when the Supreme Court docket overturned Roe v. Wade, which ended the constitutional proper to abortion and paved the best way for bans or extreme restrictions in 20 states. The courtroom problem in Texas demonstrates how the forces behind the tip of Roe threaten entry to different well being and household planning companies.
The Deliberate Parenthood clinics being sued don’t present abortions. They’re in Texas and Louisiana, which banned practically all abortions, respectively, in 2021 and 2022.
Leo, an anti-abortion Catholic, is linked to the important thing gamers within the Texas lawsuit — the whistleblower plaintiff, an legal professional common, and the choose — in response to a KFF Well being Information assessment of tax data, courtroom paperwork from a number of lawsuits, statements to lawmakers, and web site archives.
Leo supplied authorized counsel to the anti-abortion group at its middle, and he has monetary and different connections to Paxton.
They filed the case in federal courtroom in Amarillo, Texas, the place Matthew Kacsmaryk is the one choose. He’s a longtime member of the Federalist Society, the conservative authorized juggernaut for which Leo has labored for over 25 years in numerous capacities and at the moment serves as co-chair.
Kacsmaryk’s rulings have curtailed entry to reproductive well being for the reason that Senate confirmed him in 2019. He suspended the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, a drug utilized in remedy abortion, propelling the problem to the Supreme Court docket, which in the end threw out the case. In one other case, Kacsmaryk dominated to restrict younger individuals’s entry to contraception by way of a federal household planning program.
Leo didn’t reply to questions for this text and a spokesperson declined to remark. By a courtroom spokesperson, Kacsmaryk declined to remark for this text.
The nameless whistleblower in 2021 accused the Deliberate Parenthood Federation of America and Deliberate Parenthood associates of defrauding the Medicaid packages of Texas and Louisiana. Paxton, who has repeatedly acted to thwart abortion rights and joined the case in 2022, alleges within the lawsuit that clinics acquired funds they weren’t entitled to from Texas Medicaid from early 2017 to early 2021 because the state was pushing to finish Deliberate Parenthood’s standing as a Medicaid supplier. Louisiana and the Division of Justice haven’t joined the grievance.
The lawsuit’s origins return a decade. The nameless whistleblower, between 2013 and 2015, “conducted an undercover investigation to determine whether Planned Parenthood’s fetal tissue procurement practices were continuing, and if they were legal and/or ethical,” in response to the whistleblower’s grievance filed in 2021.
The reason mimics how the Middle for Medical Progress, a California-based anti-abortion group based by activist David Daleiden in 2013, has publicly described its work. “The Human Capital project is a 30-month-long investigative journalism study by The Center for Medical Progress, documenting how Planned Parenthood sells the body parts of aborted babies,” the group states on its web site.
In a November 2022 courtroom order, Kacsmaryk stated the personal celebration initiating the lawsuit is “the president of CMP,” the title Daleiden held at the moment, in response to a Middle for Medical Progress tax submitting.
The Middle for Medical Progress and Daleiden didn’t reply to requests for remark.
By legislation, federal funds can’t pay for abortions except the being pregnant threatens the lifetime of a girl or is the results of rape or incest, however this system reimburses for different care comparable to contraception, screenings for sexually transmitted infections, and most cancers screenings. Medicaid, which supplies well being protection for individuals with low incomes, is collectively financed by states and the federal authorities.
In line with its 2022-23 annual report, Deliberate Parenthood affiliate clinics supplied 9.13 million well being care companies to 2.05 million sufferers nationally in 2022. Testing and therapy for sexually transmitted infections accounted for about half of these companies, contraception amounted to 1 / 4, and abortions constituted 4%.
Deliberate Parenthood Gulf Coast, which operates clinics in Texas and Louisiana, is among the many branches Paxton and the whistleblower are suing. From July 2022 to June 2023, its clinics supplied sufferers greater than 86,000 checks for sexually transmitted infections, 44,000 visits for contraception, and practically 7,000 most cancers screening and prevention companies, CEO Melaney Linton instructed KFF Well being Information.
“All of these services and more are at risk in this politically motivated lawsuit,” Linton stated. The lawsuit’s allegations “are false. Planned Parenthood did not commit Medicaid fraud.”
Linton has stated the lawsuit’s goal is evident: “trying to shut Planned Parenthood down.”
Texas terminated Deliberate Parenthood’s Medicaid participation in March 2021. Till then, associates “were entitled to receive reimbursement” for companies to Medicaid sufferers as a result of their supplier agreements with Texas’ Medicaid program had been legitimate, attorneys for the Deliberate Parenthood clinics wrote in a February 2023 courtroom submitting in assist of their movement for abstract judgment.
Louisiana has not eliminated Deliberate Parenthood from its Medicaid program.
Leo served as authorized counsel to the Middle for Medical Progress, in response to paperwork produced as a part of a separate lawsuit Deliberate Parenthood filed in federal courtroom in California in opposition to the anti-abortion group. Amongst these, a July 2018 doc lists 25 emails Leo and Daleiden traded in June and July 2015, together with within the days earlier than the anti-abortion group launched its first video.
Paxton’s ties to Leo could be traced again not less than a decade to when the previous state senator and rising conservative star was about to start his first time period as legal professional common.
In 2014, Leo, then govt vp of the Federalist Society, was a uncommon non-Texan named to Paxton’s legal professional common transition advisory group. Tax filings present that the Harmony Fund, one in every of a number of Leo-linked teams that spend cash to affect elections and aren’t required to reveal their donors, gave $20.3 million from July 2014 by way of June 2023 to the Republican Attorneys Normal Affiliation, the political nonprofit that works to elect Republicans as states’ high legislation enforcement officers. Often known as RAGA, the group funneled greater than $1.2 million to Paxton’s marketing campaign over three election cycles from 2014 to 2022, Texas marketing campaign finance data present.
Texas authorities officers knew the state was reimbursing Deliberate Parenthood clinics for medical companies from 2017 to 2021, which renders the state’s argument that clinics violated the False Claims Act “without merit,” stated Jacob Elberg, a professor at Seton Corridor Legislation College and an professional in well being care fraud.
The legislation is meant for conditions “where essentially someone submits a claim for payment or keeps money that they’re not entitled to where they have information that the government doesn’t have,” Elberg stated. “And they essentially know that if the government knew the truth, the government wouldn’t pay them or would be demanding money back.”
However with Deliberate Parenthood, “everything involved here happened out in the open,” Elberg stated. “They were submitting bills and the government knew what was going on and was paying those bills.”
The plaintiffs’ arguments are a “tortured use” of the False Claims Act, stated Sarah Saldaña, a former U.S. legal professional for the Northern District of Texas.
“Things like this, which have these obvious political overtones, tend to undermine further the view of the public of the judicial courts system,” Saldaña stated.
The workplace of the legal professional common didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Anti-abortion teams assist the Paxton lawsuit although abortion is basically outlawed within the Lone Star State. Deliberate Parenthood “is still a pro-abortion organization,” stated John Seago, president of Texas Proper to Life. Though Deliberate Parenthood supplies different care, “all of those services are tainted by their pro-abortion mindset,” he stated.
“Planned Parenthood is a danger to Texans. We wish that Planned Parenthood didn’t have a single location within our state,” Seago stated. “Whenever the state pays Planned Parenthood to do something, even if it’s a good service, we are building up their brand and giving them more reach into our Texas communities.”
Roughly three dozen Deliberate Parenthood clinics in Texas proceed to supply non-abortion companies like contraception and STI screenings. The $1.8 billion the whistleblower is searching for is equal to just about 90% of Deliberate Parenthood’s annual income, in response to its most up-to-date annual report.
The Marketing campaign In opposition to Deliberate Parenthood
The Middle for Medical Progress was little identified in 2015 when it started releasing movies containing explosive allegations that Deliberate Parenthood was illegally promoting tissue from aborted fetuses, which Deliberate Parenthood denies.
The group and Daleiden had ties to highly effective anti-abortion organizations. They embrace Dwell Motion, the place Daleiden labored earlier than creating the Middle for Medical Progress, and Operation Rescue, the Kansas-based group that staged demonstrations in opposition to George Tiller’s abortion clinic in that state earlier than a gunman killed the doctor in 2009.
“The evidence I am gathering deeply implicates Planned Parenthood affiliates across the country in multiple felonies and can trigger severe legal and financial consequences for PP and their associates, while providing new justifications for state defunding efforts and turning public opinion against Planned Parenthood and abortion,” Daleiden wrote in a Might 2013 e-mail produced as a part of the litigation Deliberate Parenthood introduced in California. The topic line: “Meeting to Take Down PP.”
Texas tried to take away Deliberate Parenthood clinics from its Medicaid program following the middle’s launch of the undercover movies, a transfer that was half of a bigger political firestorm. Roughly a dozen states launched investigations into the reproductive well being supplier, and Republicans in Congress renewed calls to strip Deliberate Parenthood of presidency funding.
Paxton made his emotions clear about abortion as he pursued an investigation of Deliberate Parenthood in Texas. Throughout a July 29, 2015, legislative listening to, he stated “the true abomination in all of this is the institution of abortion.”
“We are rightfully horrified by what we’ve seen on these videos,” Paxton stated. “However these videos also serve as a larger reminder that, as a society, we’ve turned a blind eye to the gruesome horrors that occur in abortion clinics across America every single day. They remind us that this industry as a whole has lost the perspective of humanity.”
Deliberate Parenthood denied promoting fetal tissue and different claims within the movies, a few of which contained graphic footage. It stated the movies had been “deceptive” and closely edited to be deceptive. A grand jury in Texas cleared Deliberate Parenthood of wrongdoing.
Daleiden labored on the middle’s “Human Capital Project” for years, receiving recommendation from Leo and his associates, in response to the Middle for Medical Progress’ web site, and Daleiden’s e-mail correspondence and different paperwork produced as a part of the separate lawsuit in federal courtroom in California.
The July 2018 doc filed as a part of the litigation in California describes emails between Leo and Daleiden as “providing legal communication with counsel regarding legal planning” and “for counsel to provide legal advice regarding investigative journalism methods and the legality of fetal tissue procurement practices,” amongst different descriptions. Daleiden despatched one e-mail to Leo “regarding legal planning” on July 13, 2015, the day earlier than the Middle for Medical Progress launched its first video.
A November 2018 letter from the Middle for Medical Progress’ legal professionals said “CMP was receiving legal advice” from Leo, in addition to different conservative legal professionals and organizations. Attorneys representing the middle and Daleiden in a December 2018 authorized submitting stated Leo “provided legal advice on how to ensure successful prosecutions of the criminal actors which CMP identified.”
In its protection, Deliberate Parenthood has stated it billed the Texas Medicaid program for reimbursement for “lawfully provided” companies from February 2017 to March 2021 as a taking part Medicaid supplier within the state.
In 2015 and 2017, federal courts in Louisiana and Texas blocked these states from terminating Deliberate Parenthood’s Medicaid supplier agreements. Choose John deGravelles of the U.S. District Court docket for the Center District of Louisiana stated the state was prohibited “from suspending Medicaid payments to [Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast] for services rendered to Medicaid beneficiaries.”
The fifth Circuit Court docket of Appeals in November 2020 vacated the Texas and Louisiana injunctions, however the courtroom by no means weighed in on clawing again Medicaid funds that had been paid to clinics. Texas terminated Deliberate Parenthood in March 2021, following a state courtroom ruling.
Texas and the whistleblower argue that, as soon as the courtroom injunctions had been lifted, Deliberate Parenthood’s termination from every state’s Medicaid program grew to become efficient years earlier — 2015 in Louisiana and 2017 in Texas — because of the dates that state officers gave clinics closing discover.
Deliberate Parenthood has argued that it’s beneath no obligation to return funds acquired whereas injunctions had been in place. Kacsmaryk disagrees. In a lately unsealed abstract judgment order within the case, the choose wrote that Deliberate Parenthood clinics “had an obligation to repay the government payments they received as a matter of law.”
The order was unsealed after attorneys for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press intervened. The committee argued the general public has a presumptive and constitutional proper to entry judicial data, and that Kacsmaryk’s said issues — which included the tainting of a possible jury pool or jeopardizing the security of these concerned within the lawsuit — didn’t justify retaining the doc secret.
Kacsmaryk’s temporary justification for sealing the doc, contained within the order itself, “was very thin,” stated Katie Townsend, authorized director for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
She stated his determination to seal such an necessary doc was “highly unusual” and “very troubling.”
“Those orders are almost always completely public,” she stated.
What Paxton Features
Paxton has publicly toyed with the concept of pursuing federal workplace, and former President Donald Trump has stated he’d contemplate him for U.S. legal professional common ought to Trump return to the White Home.
For Republicans in Texas, there are political advantages to going after Deliberate Parenthood, stated Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice College in Houston. “Doing anything punitive against Planned Parenthood and anything that would reduce the ability of Planned Parenthood to be active and effective in Texas is going to be greeted with near-universal consensus within the Republican primary electorate,” Jones stated. “There’s no downside to it.”
The Republican Attorneys Normal Affiliation, which may settle for limitless political donations that it distributes to candidates, is a Paxton supporter. Marketing campaign finance data present it gave greater than $730,000 to Paxton’s legal professional common campaigns in 2014 and 2018.
Tax filings present that the Marble Freedom Belief, a political nonprofit the place Leo serves as trustee and chair, gave the Harmony Fund $100.9 million from Might 2020 by way of April 2023. Throughout the 2022 election cycle, the Harmony Fund gave $6.5 million to RAGA, which then contributed $500,000 to Paxton’s marketing campaign. It was tied as the best contribution to the Texas legal professional common, matched by a $500,000 contribution from a political motion committee backed by conservative Texas billionaires, in response to Transparency USA, a nonprofit that tracks spending in state politics.
RAGA has praised Leo’s position, calling him its “greatest champion.”
“Leonard Leo has helped shape the trajectory of RAGA and the conservative legal movement more than anyone else. As RAGA’s greatest champion, Leonard Leo reimagined the role of the state attorney general and promoted men and women dedicated to the persistence of the rule of law and the original meaning of the Constitution,” reads a RAGA web site publish from 2019 that has since been deleted.
“You want access to Leo because Leo gives you access to money,” stated Chris Toth, former govt director of the Nationwide Affiliation of Attorneys Normal.
In lots of conservative states like Texas, Toth stated, “the issue is worrying about getting primaried. And that is where playing nice with Leonard Leo and the Concord Fund come in because if you’re on their side, basically, you’re going to have no problem getting reelected.”
The Harmony Fund gave $4 million to RAGA between July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023, 4 instances what it gave the prior fiscal 12 months.
Abortion rights supporters have warned that they anticipate ongoing reproductive well being battles in Texas and past, with entry to contraception, fertility companies, and different sorts of care beneath menace.
For example, some level to the Griswold v. Connecticut determination from 1965, wherein the Supreme Court docket legalized using contraception amongst married {couples}. The excessive courtroom dominated {that a} state legislation violated a constitutional proper to privateness, a rationale that was central to Roe v. Wade eight years later.
In a 2017 speech on the Acton Institute, a conservative assume tank, Leo criticized Griswold as a choice amounting to “the creation of rights found nowhere in the text or structure of the Constitution.”
The Deliberate Parenthood lawsuit in Texas is anticipated to go to trial, probably this 12 months. The central query is whether or not Deliberate Parenthood knowingly withheld cash owed to the federal government.
All of the whereas the general public is expressing better uncertainty about rights as soon as thought of constitutionally assured. In a KFF ballot carried out in February, 1 in 5 adults stated the appropriate to make use of contraception is threatened and prone to be overturned.
Fewer than half of adults thought of it to be safe.
