Ohio Republicans move to defund Planned Parenthood

Ohio Planned Parenthood, and women, to the back of the bus Ohio Republicans want to get rid of Planned Parenthood but apparently don't want to get into the kind of trouble Texas did and lose Medicaid funding for women's health altogether. So they've figured out an end run that is defunding Planned Parenthood by default:

Under the proposal, local health departments get the top funding priority, followed by federally qualified community health centers, private care centers and, last, Planned Parenthood.

'We refer to it as defunding Planned Parenthood because a lot of the money, in fact, will go to the top three, but it doesn't preclude Planned Parenthood, at the end of the day, from receiving money,' said Mike Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life.

So it's Texas-lite, and a pretty sneaky way to try to avoid a complete cut-off of federal funds for women's health care.

This is a little like Mitt Romney's people explaining how taking funding away from Planned Parenthood isn't really defunding.

Ohio Republicans are trickier, and better, at it. But that's probably because the apparent spokesman for the Ohio House Republicans is the president of Ohio Right to Life, and he doesn't need to pretend he's not waging a war on women.