Federal Appeals Court stops Texas from banning Planned Parenthood from state health program

Rick Perry loses, again, and Texas women win The Texas-Planned Parenthood legal roller-coaster continues. On Monday, a federal judge granted an injunction barring the state from barring Planned Parenthood from the state's health care program for low-income women. Then, on Tuesday, Judge Jerry Smith of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that ruling.

Today, a three-judge panel from the appeals court ruled again in favor of Planned Parenthood, reinstating the injunction at least until a lower court can hear formal arguments.

Appellate Judge Jerry Smith had stayed an injunction keeping the law from being enforced earlier this week so the court could review it.

But on Friday he said Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott had not demonstrated that Texas would be irreparably harmed by holding off on enforcing the new law until a trial in Austin.

'We cannot conclude, on the present state of the record, that the State has shown a great likelihood, approaching a near certainty, that the district court abused its discretion in entering the injunction,' the court order said.

This is far from over, but it's at least a temporary reprieve for Planned Parenthood, and some 130,000 women in Texas who rely on PP for their health care.