A NETWORK of family planning clinics asked a judge today to restore its Medicaid funding, which has been cut under President Donald Trump’s removal of federal funding for abortions.

Maine Family Planning (MFP), which runs 18 clinics in the north-eastern state, says it provides vital services including cervical cancer screenings, contraception and primary care to low-income residents, and does not use Medicaid funds to pay for its abortion services.

“Without Medicaid, MFP will be forced to stop providing all primary care for all patients — regardless of their insurance status — by the end of October,” it said, adding that its clinics “provide care in very rural areas of the state where there are no other healthcare providers.”

Deputy director for the Centre for Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Progamme Anne Marie Costello said MFP’s case was “legally groundless” and sought to revive a “constitutional right to abortion — jurisprudence that the Supreme Court has decisively interred.”