Inside conservative activist Leonard Leo’s long campaign to gut Planned Parenthood
A federal lawsuit in Texas against Planned Parenthood has a web of ties to conservative activist Leonard Leo, whose decades-long effort to steer the U.S. court system to the right overturned Roe v. Wade, yielding the biggest rollback of reproductive health access in half a century.
Brought by an anonymous whistleblower and later joined by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the suit alleges the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and three Planned Parenthood affiliates defrauded the Texas and Louisiana Medicaid programs by collecting $17 million for services provided while it fought state efforts to remove it as an approved provider.
The suit claims violations of the False Claims Act, an obscure but powerful law protecting the government from fraud, and seeks $1.8 billion in penalties from Planned Parenthood, according to a motion that lawyers for the whistleblower filed in federal court in 2023.
The lawsuit builds on efforts over years by the religious right and politicians who oppose abortion to deliver blows to Planned Parenthood — which provides sexual and reproductive health care at nearly 600 sites nationwide — now bolstered by Leo’s work reshaping the American judiciary.
Anti-abortion groups and their allies secured a generational victory in 2022 when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which ended the constitutional right to abortion and paved the way for bans or severe restrictions in 20 states. The court challenge in Texas demonstrates how the forces behind the end of Roe threaten access to other health and family planning services.
The Planned Parenthood clinics being sued do not provide abortions. They are in Texas and Louisiana, which banned nearly all abortions, respectively, in 2021 and 2022.
Leo, an anti-abortion Catholic, is connected to the key players in the Texas lawsuit — the whistleblower plaintiff, an attorney general, and the judge — according to a KFF Health News review of tax records, court documents from multiple lawsuits, statements to lawmakers, and website archives.
Leo provided legal counsel to the anti-abortion group at its center, and he has financial and other connections to Paxton. [Continue reading…]