‘Massive win for life’: Supreme Court opens door for states to cut off Medicaid funding from abortion clinics

In what pro-life groups are calling a “major win for babies and their mothers,” the Supreme Court on Thursday opened the door for South Carolina – and other states – to cut off funding to abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood.

The high court ruled 6-3 along ideological lines in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, which centered around whether individual patients could bring a lawsuit under the Medicaid Act when a state omits providers such as Planned Parenthood.

The case stemmed from South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster’s 2018 decision to ban abortion clinics from participating in Medicaid, as The Lion reported, as he said it would constitute taxpayer “subsidy of abortion and the denial of the right to life.”  

It is “an important case that has not drawn as much attention,” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley noted on X. 

“The court considered whether there is a private right of action for people to challenge South Carolina’s decision to end Planned Parenthood’s participation in the state’s Medicaid program. The Court says no. Medicaid laws do not give an unambiguous right to bring a federal civil rights action.”  

Although the case centered around a narrow question about Medicaid, it is expected to have ripple effects nationally by prompting other Republican-led states to pull Medicaid funding from abortion providers. 

While Medicaid funding can’t be used for abortions under federal law, Planned Parenthood also offers contraception, birth control, vaccines and sex change procedures, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy.  

Planned Parenthood has condemned the Supreme Court’s ruling, saying other states could soon follow and “block people with Medicaid coverage from going to health care providers for political reasons.”  

The court’s decision is a “grave injustice that strikes at the very bedrock of American freedom and promises to send South Carolina deeper into a health care crisis,” Planned Parenthood South Atlantic CEO Paige Johnson said in a statement provided to The Lion. 

But South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said the court’s ruling means “states, not abortion providers, decide who participates in their Medicaid programs.”  

“The Supreme Court just slammed the door on Planned Parenthood’s latest attempt to force its radical agenda through the courts on our state. South Carolina, not federal judges or D.C. activist groups, gets to decide how we run our Medicaid program,” he said. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a press briefing Thursday the Trump administration is “glad” the Supreme Court ruled in favor of South Carolina.  

“The president has always maintained that Americans should not be forced to violate their conscience and their religious liberty by having their tax dollars fund abortions,” she said.  

Pro-life groups also have also welcomed the Supreme Court’s ruling, noting it’s a major step in stopping “forced taxpayer funding of the abortion industry.”  

“This morning the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a major win for babies and their mothers,” Susan B. Anthony Pro-life America said of the ruling, citing research that Planned Parenthood’s latest data indicates it performed more than 400,000 abortions in a single year while its tax-funding reached nearly $800 million.  

“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,” SBA Pro-Life America Director of Legal Affairs Katie Daniel said. 

 The decision is a “massive win for life, women’s health, and common sense,”  

Alliance Defending Freedom president Kristen Waggoner said.  

“Taxpayers should not be forced to fund a radical, multibillion-dollar organization that specializes in political activism, abortion, and providing dangerous drugs to children who identify as the opposite sex,” she wrote on X, “especially an organization that doesn’t provide the comprehensive healthcare that’s available at [around] 200 other publicly funded clinics throughout the state.”