State of Kansas pays Planned Parenthood’s legal bills over Medicaid

photo by: AP File Photo

This March 2014 photo shows the Planned Parenthood in Wichita.

WICHITA — A court filing shows Kansas’ failed effort to strip Medicaid money from Planned Parenthood will cost the state more than $464,300 in attorney fees, expenses and other costs.

A stipulation filed Monday in federal court in Kansas comes after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected last year the state’s appeal.

Lower court rulings had blocked the Kansas Department of Health and Environment from withholding money that is used for health services for low-income women. The money is not used for abortions.

The settlement covers the legal fees and expenses incurred by Planned Parenthood and others who successfully challenged the Kansas effort to withhold the money after heavily edited videos claimed to show the nation’s largest abortion provider profiting from sales of fetal tissue for medical research.

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