Supreme Court lets states ax Planned Parenthood funds

What happened

The Supreme Court Thursday ruled that Planned Parenthood and one of its clients cannot sue South Carolina over its push to withhold Medicaid funds from the group under a 2018 executive order from Gov. Henry McMaster (R). The court ruled 6-3 along ideological lines in the case, Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, with the three liberal justices dissenting.

Who said what

McMaster cited Planned Parenthood's abortion operations in ordering the state to withhold funds, but Thursday's ruling mentioned abortion "only in passing," focusing instead on the procedural question of whether the plaintiffs had standing to sue to enforce Medicare's provisions, The New York Times said. The decision nevertheless "made it easier for states to deny funding to Planned Parenthood," particularly given the Trump administration's "hostility to abortion rights."

Federal funds can't be used to pay for abortions, with rare exceptions, but Medicare can reimburse Planned Parenthood for its other services, like cancer screenings and birth control, under a provision that lets patients go to any qualified provider that will accept their insurance. The court's conservative majority acknowledged that part of the law but decided it "does not make it a right enforceable in court," The Associated Press said. That closed off Planned Parenthood's "primary court path to keeping Medicaid funding in place: patient lawsuits."

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Because the decision blocked such lawsuits, Jezebel said, it would allow states to "'defund' providers simply because they provide gender-affirming care, or even birth control." Thursday's decision is "likely to result in tangible harm to real people," Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said in her dissenting opinion. It will deprive Medicaid patients of the "deeply personal freedom" to "decide who treats us at our most vulnerable."

What next?

The Supreme Court is expected to hand down its "six final decisions" of the term today, The Washington Post said. The "major rulings" outstanding include "whether to limit nationwide injunctions," notably Trump's ban on birthright citizenship, and the "legality of requiring age verification to access online porn."