A federal appeals court has rejected the group Planned Parenthood’s challenge of a funding ban in Texas. Texas has sought to cut payments to Planned Parenthood and exclude it from a government-funded health program for low-income women because it also provides abortions. The Texas program offers cancer and health screenings as well as birth control services to some 130,000 low-income women, about 40 percent of whom are served through Planned Parenthood. But on Thursday, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans declined to reconsider an earlier ruling upholding the ban. In response, Texas Gov. Rick Perry immediately announced Texas will stop all payments to program participants affiliated with abortion providers. A recent George Washington University study has warned Texas will be unlikely to provide adequate care to the patients currently served by Planned Parenthood.