Texas Votes to Defund Planned Parenthood

Texas is set to become the latest—and largest—state to cut funding to Planned Parenthood. An omnibus health care bill passed by the state legislature and headed for Gov. Rick Perry's desk blocks Planned Parenthood from receiving some $38 million in state family planning money and from taking part in the Medicaid Women's Health Program, reports the Austin American-Statesman.

The bill also seeks to push the federal government to convert Texas' Medicaid program into a block grant, and to allow the state to join an interstate compact aiming to opt out of the federal health care law. Perry "would prefer local or state solutions to Texas’ health care challenges rather than one-size-fits-all bureaucracy from the federal government," a spokeswoman tells Politico. (More Planned Parenthood stories.)