The state of Kansas has delayed its plan to cut Planned Parenthood, just days after a defunding measure was signed by Governor Sam Brownback.

The abortion group’s state affiliates sued to prevent the action, and according to a spokesperson for the abortion giant the state agreed on Friday to delay the date of defunding from May 10 to May 24.

The lawsuit by Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri and Planned Parenthood of St. Louis Region, as well as an abortionist, was filed on May 4 and accuses Kansas’ decision of being politically motivated.

However, the state has cited ethical and professional concerns for its decision to pull funding. In January, Governor Sam Brownback told Department of Health Secretary Susan Mosier that “Kansans deserve a higher quality of services, more transparency, and more fiscal responsibility than has been shown by [Planned Parenthood].”

Brownback signed the defunding measure on May 3.

Kansas is just the latest in a series of Republican-led states to eliminate funding for the nation’s largest abortion group. While the policy has been a priority of the pro-life movement, defunding became a leading concern for many Republican officeholders after videos were released last summer allegedly showing Planned Parenthood officials supporting and creating illegal profits being made from illegal harvesting of fetal parts.

Planned Parenthood has a powerful ally — the Obama administration — in its fight to force taxpayers to fund its services, many of which are medical, medication and drug-induced abortions. Last month, Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services Director Vikki Wachino wrote a letter to Medicaid agencies in all 50 states that declared a rule adopted by the Obama administration forbade states from denying Medicaid funds to any “qualified provider.”

Wachino’s letter is the latest effort by the administration to protect Planned Parenthood’s funding. However, an attorney for the pro-life legal group Alliance Defending Freedom told Congress last September that the abortion giant does not have a right to taxpayer funding. “The idea that a Medicaid provider … say a gynecologist, accused of abusing women, the idea that we would require that Medicaid continue to provide funding to that doctor until a jury actually convicts would be abhorrent,” said Senior Counsel Casey Mattox.

According to Mattox, “In the last two decades or so, about 9,000 providers [were] excluded from Medicaid. In most of those cases, they’re completely uncontroversial. … When it’s Planned Parenthood, however, you have the Centers for Medicaid Services reinterpret the Medicaid statute to deny states the opportunity to exclude those providers.”

Whether Kansas will be able to implement Mattox’s position, or will be limited to the one espoused by the Obama administration, will now be decided by a judge. Hearings for the lawsuit against the state are set to begin on May 17.