This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A federal appeals court Tuesday called out Gov. Gary Herbert's attack on the Utah branch of Planned Parenthood for exactly what it was: A stunt, based on a lie, that threatens to harm innocent people for the governor's political gain.
Herbert should now relent in his unseemly attack on a nonprofit group that does much to protect the lives and health of his own constituents. And now that he no longer has to worry about being outflanked on the right in his re-election campaign, he might see the error of his ways.
By a 2-1 vote, a panel of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a suitably strong denunciation of the decision Herbert made last August to cut off $272,000 in federal funds that pass through the state to the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah. For years, those funds have paid for services to the public that include testing and tracking sexually transmitted diseases and providing education on matters of personal and sexual health.
Herbert's move came after a phony investigation by a pseudo-health organization yielded a series of deliberately deceptive videos. Those tapes purported to show that Planned Parenthood affiliates in other states were illegally profiting by selling fetal tissue.
Those allegations were false. And Herbert admitted that there was no impropriety committed by the Utah affiliate.
But the governor canceled the contracts anyway, declaring that things that other state affiliates were accused of were so heinous that somebody had to be punished.
Even if it meant that the real price would be paid by regular, apolitical Utahns who would have lost out on important services that Planned Parenthood provides.
Technically, the 10th Circuit did not end the case. It merely ruled that the U.S. District Court in Utah should have granted Planned Parenthood's request for an injunction against the cutoff. The chances that the organization would prevail in its claim that the state had violated its First and 14th Amendment rights to speech and association were high, the court ruled, and Herbert's argument that he has the right to cancel state contracts for any reason was not good enough.
The governor clearly was motivated by a desire, on the eve of the Republican State Convention, to renew his anti-abortion credentials. Since then, Herbert has convincingly won re-nomination and, it would appear, has no immediate need to defend himself from attacks from his right.
After the ruling, Herbert's spokesman issued the usual statement about how the governor would, "determine the best course of action going forward."
Which should be a way of saying that the state will now drop the whole sorry case.