Marjorie Dannenfelser, head of the anti-choice Susan B. Anthony List, said on a podcast last week that she expected President Trump’s judicial nominees to help pave the way for state laws stripping Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood, saying that one “Trump judge” would have tipped a tied circuit court vote last week that allowed the provider to keep Medicaid funding in Louisiana.
The AP noted, “The decision comes as President Donald Trump has nominated three people for the court, including attorney Kyle Duncan, who has defended Louisiana abortion restrictions.”
Dannenfelser said on the “Issues, Etc.” podcast on Friday that state defunding of Planned Parenthood “will be the trend across the country” in the Trump administration and will take “a huge chunk of money” from the healthcare provider.
“It shows us very acutely how important judges, and the Trump administration’s nomination and confirmation of circuit judges are,” she added. “In Louisiana just a few days ago there was a tied decision on exactly the same case, and therefore we didn’t win that case and Medicaid is going to continue to be funded. But it’s because we haven’t appointed the Trump judge yet who would be on that court. If the judge had been there, we would have defunded Medicaid in the state of Louisiana and we could move on to somewhere else.”
She said that “it is a very planned and very important domino effect where all the pieces of the game have to be carefully crafted” in order to succeed.
