Supreme Court allows states to cut off Planned Parenthood funding

A Supreme Court ruling will allow states to cut off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood without the risk of being sued. The 6-3 decision in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic fell along ideological lines, with the conservatives forming the majority and the court’s liberals dissenting.

History of the case

South Carolina passed a law in 2018 that prohibits public funds from being used for abortions. As a result, it announced in July of that year that Planned Parenthood could no longer participate in the state’s Medicaid program.

Planned Parenthood operates two clinics in South Carolina that offer a wide range of reproductive services, including abortions. The organization and its patient, Julie Edwards, filed a lawsuit. They argued that South Carolina’s law violates the Medicaid free-choice-of-provider provision, which allows recipients to visit any qualified doctor who accepts Medicaid.

Edwards said she liked Planned Parenthood and wanted to go there for all her gynecological and reproductive care. The suit alleged South Carolina violated Edwards’ rights when it denied her that opportunity.

The plaintiffs filed a class-action lawsuit under a provision in federal law that allows private parties to sue states that violate their constitutional and legal rights.

What was the majority’s reasoning for the decision?

The court’s conservative wing disagreed and ruled they had no basis to sue because federal law allows the federal government to withhold Medicaid funds from any state that fails to follow the program’s rules properly.

“The job of resolving how best to weigh those competing costs and benefits belongs to the people’s elected representatives, not unelected judges charged with applying the law as they find it,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion.

Gorsuch wrote that the plaintiffs needed to show that the provisions don’t just benefit them or serve their interest, but “clearly and unambiguously” gives them federal rights.

What did the liberal justices say in their dissent?

In her dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the court’s decision weakened key civil rights protections that Congress enacted during the Reconstruction era.

She also said the court’s decision breaks with Medicaid’s free-choice-of-provider provision.

“At a minimum, [the decision] will deprive Medicaid recipients in South Carolina of their only meaningful way of enforcing a right that Congress has expressly granted to them,” Jackson wrote.

Jackson continued, “And, more concretely, it will strip those South Carolinians — and countless other Medicaid recipients around the country — of a deeply personal freedom: the ‘ability to decide who treats us at our most vulnerable.’”

According to KFF, Texas cut off Planned Parenthood from its full Medicaid program in 2021. Idaho and Tennessee had pending applications to do the same. The organization is the country’s largest abortion service provider.