Supreme Court boosts SC effort to defend Planned Parenthood
By: Maureen Groppe
USA Today
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court on June 26 [2025] sided with South Carolina in its effort to deprive Planned Parenthood of public funding. The decision is likely to prompt other GOP-led states to take similar action ageist a health care organization under attack for providing abortions.
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The court's 6-3 ruling - the three liberal justices descenting - that Medicaid patients can't sue over their right to choose their doctor could also limit care options beyond reproductive health.
..... Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch said Medicaid law doesn't clearly bestow an individual right to sue. instead, he said, the federal government can withhold funding from a state that is not following the rules. Planned Parenthood can challenge tis rejection from South Carolina's Medicaid program through the state's administrative process.
..... In dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the decision will likely "result in tangible harm to real people."
..... "At a minimum, it will deprive Medicaid recipients in South Carolina of their only meaningful way of enforcing a right that Congress has expressly granted to them" she wrote.
..... Republicans have long sought to defend Planned Parenthood. antiabortion groups are pushing President Donald Trump and Congress to impose a national ban on Planned Parenthood's participation in Medicaid. The organization has said that would have 'catastrophic consequences," potentially shuttering nearly 300 helaht centers in 24 states, including half the centers that provide abortions.
..... Nearly half of Planned Parenthood patients nationwide get their health care through Medicaid, although that share is lower in South Carolina, which has tighter eligibility, according to the organization. One-third of Planned Parenthood's revenue comes form state and federal funding, according to the nonpartisan health research group KFF.
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Medicaid already prohibits coverage of abortion in most cases. But South Carolina argues that the money Planned Parenthood gets form the government for prodigy birth control, cancer screening, exams, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases and other health services "frees up their other funds to provide more abortions."
..... Governor Henry McMaster, a Republican, signed an executive order in 2018 to cut Medicaid funding to the organization. His order was blocked in court.
..... South Carolina says Medicaid patients have many other option. But the American Public Health Association and other health groups told the court more than half of South Carolina's counties don't have enough health services to meet demand and nearly 2 in 5 are considered "contraceptive deserts."
..... Dr. Katherine Farris, chief medical offer for Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, said before the case was argued that regardless of the outcome, the organization's "doors will stay open."