The new law put a one-year moratorium on Medicaid funds paying for abortions.
Planned Parenthood, the nation’s leading provider of abortion services, ran to a judge in Boston, and Indira Talwani put a 14-day temporary restraining order on that provision.
The TRO lasts 14 days and directs the Department of Health and Human Services to "take all steps necessary to ensure that Medicaid funding continues to be disbursed" to Planned Parenthood. The ruling, which came after a lawsuit from Planned Parenthood, doesn't apply to any other health care providers, CBS News reports.
The new law targets Medicaid funding to groups "primarily engaged in family planning services, reproductive health, and related medical care" that provide abortions.
Planned Parenthood isn't named in the provision, but the group contends it's a "naked attempt to leverage the government's spending power to attack and penalize Planned Parenthood and impermissibly single it out for unfavorable treatment," CBS News reports.
A hearing is scheduled for July 21, at which point Talwani could extend the TRO through the duration of the lawsuit or remove it and allow the funding cut to proceed while the lawsuit plays out.
But American Family Association attorney Steve Crampton says there are some problems with the ruling.
“The judge's order, as best I can tell, does not comply with some of the basic requirements of the federal rules with regards to such emergency actions.”
Specifically, Crampton says, stating why the injunction was ordered and its specific terms. He says the order was also sprung on the government.
“A Temporary Restraining Order, TRO, was issued without notice to the government. So they didn't even have an opportunity to respond.”
New rules don't apply
He says the court order is not subject to the recent Supreme Court ruling banning universal mandates from lower courts because of the type of injunction Talwani, an Obama appointee, applied.
For now, there’s little the government can do but watch this play out.
“A temporary restraining order like this is not reviewable on appeal but for very extreme circumstances. So, in effect, this is a bulletproof order for at least a very short time,” Crampton said.
But he says the Trump administration is getting good at parrying these political attacks from the courts for all the practice it's been getting.
“I would characterize this as another classic lawfare undertaking,” Crampton said.
Editor's Note: American Family Association is the parent organization of the American Family News Network, which operates AFN.net.
