Judge blocks Texas cutting Medicaid to Planned Parenthood

AUSTIN, Texas -- A federal judge has stopped Texas from cutting off Medicaid dollars to Planned Parenthood over secretly recorded videos taken by anti-abortion activists in 2015.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks on Tuesday preserves what Planned Parenthood says are non-abortion services to nearly 11,000 low-income women. Texas originally intended to defund Planned Parenthood in January, but Sparks told the state to wait pending his ruling.

Federal courts have consistently thwarted Republican-controlled states from denying Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood over heavily edited videos that claimed to show the nation's largest abortion provider profiting from sales of fetal tissue for medical research.

Planned Parenthood has denied wrongdoing, and investigations in 13 states didn't result in criminal charges.

Arkansas, Alabama, Kansas, Mississippi and Louisiana have also had similar efforts blocked.