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Planned Parenthood attorneys are asking a federal judge to prevent Kansas from cutting off Medicaid funding for the organization, arguing that the state is attempting to punish its affiliates for providing abortions. U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson was having a hearing Tuesday in a lawsuit filed last month by two Planned Parenthood affiliates against the state health department's top administrator. The agency plans to cut off funding July 7 for services such as health exams and cancer screenings provided to poor Kansas residents whose health coverage is provided by the state's Medicaid program. (6/7)

A lawyer for Louisiana's attorney general asked a federal appeals court on Monday to overturn a judge's ruling that barred the state from taking Medicaid funding away from two Planned Parenthood clinics. Jimmy Faircloth, a lawyer for Attorney General Jeff Landry, told the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that a state administrative appeals process should be allowed to take place to decide whether Planned Parenthood should be funded. (Burdeau, 6/6)