Planned Parenthood seeks injunction against Florida health agency [View all]

[Novara]

Planned Parenthood seeks injunction against Florida health agency

Planned Parenthood sought an emergency legal injunction on Monday against Florida health officials to block the use of what it says are new and unpublished standards to define pregnancy gestation periods.

The legal move filed in circuit court in Tallahassee came after Florida Republican Governor Rick Scott ordered a probe last month of the state's 16 Planned Parenthood locations, resulting in three clinics being cited on Aug. 5 for illegally performing abortions in the second trimester.

Planned Parenthood said the abortions in question were first-trimester abortions and that the state appeared to have arbitrarily shortened its measurement of the first trimester.


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The group accused the state of moving the goalpost by using different standards from ones AHCA had used over the past decade to calculate first- and second-trimester abortions.

Planned Parenthood said AHCA had long agreed to define the first trimester of a pregnancy as the first 12 weeks of pregnancy or the first 14 weeks following the last normal menstrual period.

The group noted that AHCA's new definition was made without any prior announcement and noted the political timing of the citations that were issued two days before the Republican presidential debate.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/17/us-usa-plannedparenthood-florida-idUSKCN0QM1VN20150817?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews