The fight over Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood moved to Texas this week.
Three days after Gov. Greg Abbott announced his decision to end Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood, state health department investigators showed up on Thursday at Planned Parenthood health centers in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Brownsville with orders to turn over thousands of pages of documents, including patients’ records and employees’ home addresses and telephone numbers.
Some, but not all, of the extensive records sought by the state related specifically to abortion.
For example, Planned Parenthood South Texas was told to produce five years of records — whether electronic, paper or ultrasound — concerning any patients billed to Medicaid who had an abortion in which any part of the fetus was removed or preserved for research use. Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast was to turn over a complete copy of certain patients’ records, including doctors’ orders, nursing notes and lab tests, as well as the center’s appointment books, patient sign-in sheets and contracts.
“We’re concerned about the breadth and depth of what they’re asking for,” said Sarah Wheat, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas.
Rest of article found at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/24/us...-abortion.html
__________________
~Anya~
Democracy Dies in Darkness
~Washington Post
"...I'm deeply concerned by recently adopted policies which punish children for their parents’ actions ... The thought that any State would seek to deter parents by inflicting such abuse on children is unconscionable."
UN Human Rights commissioner