The Assault on Womens Sexual and Reproductive Rights

[Kobi]

AUSTIN, Texas, Jan 11 (Reuters) - A Texas judge on Friday denied a Planned Parenthood request to be allowed to offer health services to low-income women through a state program.

Texas now excludes abortion providers and affiliates from the program and Planned Parenthood has been fighting to become a provider again.

State District Judge Stephen Yelenosky, who issued a temporary ruling in favor of Planned Parenthood in November, said on Friday it was unlikely Planned Parenthood would succeed at trial.

The state program now known as the Texas Women's Health Program provides family planning services and preventive health care to about 115,000 women. It does not provide abortions.

The federal government had provided 90 percent of the program's $40 million annual budget, but stopped funding at the end of 2012 because it objected to the state's decision to enforce a law already on the books that bars funding for abortion providers and affiliates.

On Jan. 1, Texas launched a nearly identical program funded by only state dollars so it could exclude Planned Parenthood, the program's largest provider. Planned Parenthood says it served nearly half the women in what was until Dec. 31 a Medicaid program.

The battle in Texas is one of several between Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, and states ruled by Republicans that are trying to exclude it from state programs.

http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters...Texas_program/