In Texas, the fight over abortion just grew more heated. The New York Times reports that state investigators showed up at Planned Parenthood centers in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Brownsville. The investigators asked the clinics to turn over private information about patients, including medical records and home addresses and phone numbers. Much of the requested information, which amounts to thousands of pages, relates to the organization’s performance of abortions. The confiscation of information comes three days after Governor Greg Abbott announced his decision to stop Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood.
A spokesman for the inspector general said he could not discuss what the health investigators were looking for in their orders to turn over records.
Planned Parenthood protested the investigation, and State Senator José Rodríguez, chairman of the Texas Senate Democratic Caucus, disavowed the move: “This is a gross invasion of client privacy, and I’m tired of watching low-income women become collateral damage in attacks on Planned Parenthood that are based on deceptive videos and political grandstanding.”