The Supreme Court rejected Planned Parenthood’s bid Thursday to prevent its exclusion from South Carolina’s Medicaid program.
South Carolina ended Planned Parenthood’s participation in its Medicaid program in 2018, which the abortion provider argued violates the free-choice-of provider provision in the Medicaid Act. South Carolina argued Planned Parenthood does not have the right to sue to enforce the provision.
“The U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed our right to exclude abortion providers from receiving taxpayer dollars,” South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said in a statement. “Seven years ago, we took a stand to protect the sanctity of life and defend South Carolina’s authority and values – and today, we are finally victorious.”
“At their best, individual suits under §1983 can vindicate plaintiffs’ rights while pushing States to fulfill their obligations,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion. “But 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.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in a dissent joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, wrote that the ruling “is likely to 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,” Jackson wrote. “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.’”
Katie Daniel, director of legal affairs and policy counsel for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said Planned Parenthood was “rightly disqualified” from bringing a lawsuit in a statement.
“By rejecting Planned Parenthood’s lawfare, the Court not only saves countless unborn babies from a violent death and their mothers from dangerously shoddy ‘care,’ it also protects Medicaid from exposure to thousands of lawsuits from unqualified providers that would jeopardize the entire program,” she said. “Pro-life Republican leaders are eliminating government waste and prioritizing Medicaid for those who need it most – women, children, the poor, people with disabilities.”
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
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