The nation’s highest court has spoken. And the Left is furious.
Because the Supreme Court has handed down a ruling that has Democrats kicking and screaming.
Supreme Court Rules South Carolina Can Cut Planned Parenthood Funding
In a landmark decision on June 26, the Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that South Carolina can block Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood, paving the way for other conservative-led states to limit public financial support to the nation’s leading abortion provider. The decision, which divided the court along ideological lines, marks a significant shift in how states can manage Medicaid provider eligibility.
The majority opinion, penned by Justice Neil Gorsuch, centered on the 1965 Medicaid Act, concluding that it does not grant individual patients the right to sue states over decisions to exclude their chosen providers from Medicaid funding.
This ruling reverses earlier decisions by lower courts, including one from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, which had issued an injunction to halt South Carolina’s funding ban on Planned Parenthood.
“Like other States, South Carolina has an administrative process that lets providers challenge their exclusion from the State’s Medicaid program,” Justice Gorsuch wrote. He argued that allowing private lawsuits could strain state resources, diverting funds and focus from essential social services to legal battles
“… private enforcement does not always benefit the public, not least because it requires States to divert money and attention away from social services and toward litigation. And balancing those costs and benefits poses a question of public policy that, under our system of government, only Congress may answer.”
The case, Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, stemmed from a 2018 executive order by South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, which barred all abortion clinics, including Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, from collecting Medicaid funds. Medicaid, which provides health coverage to more than 70 million low-income Americans, is a state and federal government program.
Attorneys for Julie Edwards, a Medicaid-eligible patient, and Planned Parenthood argued that the ban went against federal law, which states that beneficiaries “may obtain” care from qualified providers. However, Gorsuch emphasized that the Medicaid Act’s language on what constitutes a “qualified” provider is vague, and disputes over federal funding conditions are typically resolved through lawsuits initiated by the federal government
“The decision whether to let private plaintiffs enforce a new statutory right poses delicate questions of public policy. New rights for some mean new duties for others,” Gorsuch noted, adding that statutes like Medicaid are unlikely to grant enforceable rights.
In a pointed dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by the court’s other liberal justices, argued that the Medicaid Act explicitly protects patients’ rights to challenge state decisions that disqualify their preferred providers.
“The provision’s history confirms what the text makes evident: that Congress intended the provision to be binding,” Jackson said.
She highlighted that Congress deliberately used language, informed by its experience with Medicare, to ensure Medicaid recipients could choose their providers. “Congress’s intent could not have been clearer,” she asserted.
The ruling comes amid ongoing conservative efforts to restrict public funding for organizations like Planned Parenthood, which, while barred from using federal funds directly for abortions, provides other health services which those funds go to.
South Carolina’s strict abortion law, which prohibits the procedure after six weeks, does not prevent Planned Parenthood from operating clinics in Charleston and Columbia that legally perform abortions within those limits.
Justice Clarence Thomas, in a concurring opinion, pushed for further restrictions on plaintiffs’ ability to sue for constitutional violations under the Civil Rights Act of 1987, signaling a potential future battleground for the court.
As the most prominent abortion-related case this term, Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic highlights the ongoing tension between state authority and federal protections, with implications for how health care funding disputes will be resolved moving forward.
Stay tuned to The Federalist Wire.
