The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals [official website] placed a temporary injunction on Wednesday on an order from Utah Governor Gary Herbert [official website] which would have ended the state’s contract with Planned Parenthood [official website] and cut federal funding to the Utah branches of the company. The injunction is the court’s response to an appeal by Planned Parenthood after U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups upheld [decision] the order after an initial blockage [JURIST report]. The governor stated [official statement] that he is “confident that once the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has the opportunity to look closely at the legal issues in this case, like Judge Waddoups, they will reach the same decision and agree that it is contrary to the public’s best interest to remove the governor’s discretion to make contract decisions on behalf on the state.”

Abortion related issues have been a heated topic of discussion for the past several years in the US, especially after the release of controversial videos showing Planned Parenthood employees discussing the sale of fetal tissue. In September 2015, the US House of Representatives [official website] approved [JURIST report] the Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2015 [official bill], a bill that would cut all federal funding to Planned Parenthood. In August Planned Parenthood filed a complaint [JURIST report] in the US District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, alleging that Alabama Governor Robert Bentley’s termination of Medicaid provider agreements for the facility violates a federal law that requires Medicaid beneficiaries to have a choice in provider for family planning. Also in August the Alaska Superior Court struck down [JURIST report] a state law it says would have unfairly burdened low-income individuals by limiting Medicaid funding for abortions. Earlier in August the US District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee lifted [JURIST report] a temporary restraining order and allowed the state to enforce new abortion laws that raised licensing and safety requirements for clinics. In July Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed into law [JURIST report] the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act [official bill], limiting the ability of a woman to seek an abortion more than 20 weeks into her pregnancy. In June the US Supreme Court granted a motion to stay [JURIST report], allowing more than half of Texas’ 18 abortion clinics to stay open by temporarily blocking a law that would have raised standards for clinics and required many of them to close.