SCOTUS to Hear Case on Defunding Planned Parenthood Abortion Provider
by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – The US Supreme Court on Wednesday (Dec. 18) agreed to consider a request by South Carolina to deny public funding to Planned Parenthood on the grounds that, in addition to providing healthcare services, it is the nation’s leading abortion provider, Reuters reports.
Republican-led South Carolina has banned abortion after six weeks’ gestation. However, the case at hand arose in 2018, before the US Supreme Court in 2022 reversed the Roe v Wade ruling which had granted a federal right to abortion up to viability.
Launching a lengthy and convoluted legal process, plaintiffs Planned Parenthood affiliate and Medicaid patient Julie Edwards sued the state after South Carolina’s Republican Governor Henry McMaster ordered that Planned Parenthood be barred from participation in the state Medicaid program, Reuters reports. McMaster had argued that abortion providers are unqualified to provide family planning services.
The plaintiffs argued that preventing Planned Parenthood from receiving state funds violates a Medicaid Act provision that gives beneficiaries the right to choose their providers.
In March, the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. “Preserving access to Planned Parenthood and other providers means preserving an affordable choice and quality care for an untold number of mothers and infants in South Carolina.”
However, appealing to the nation’s highest court, South Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services seeks a ruling that the Medicaid Act does not give Medicaid recipients the right to challenge a state’s decision “that a specific provider like Planned Parenthood is not qualified to receive taxpayer funding.”
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