SCOTUS will hear case that could allow states to defund Planned Parenthood

On April 2, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, a case that could protect states from lawsuits when they disqualify Planned Parenthood or any organization from their Medicaid programs. According to John Bursch, senior counsel and vice president of appellate advocacy with Alliance Defending Freedom, this case is “pivotal.”

“Planned Parenthood portrays itself as a healthcare provider, but it is an organization dedicated to abortion and controversial gender transition treatments, not comprehensive healthcare,” said Bursch during a press briefing on Thursday, adding:

According to its own reporting, Planned Parenthood performs between one-third and two-thirds of all abortions in the United States annually, while its provision of other medical services continues to decline. Between 2022 and 2023, preventative care visits fell 31% and the number of patients seen annually has fallen by 60% since the 1990s. Cancer screening and prevention services have dropped by 71% since 2010.

Taxpayers should not be compelled to fund an organization that profits from abortion and pushes experimental treatments on vulnerable children, all while cloaking itself as a healthcare provider…

South Carolina, supported by the US government, agrees that states must have the authority to steward limited Medicaid resources toward providers that align with their values and serve their citizens’ true healthcare needs, not a multi-billion-dollar entity advancing an activist agenda.

With this case, the Supreme Court is asked to answer a yes or no question: Can beneficiaries under this particular provision of the Medicaid Act sue a state when that state disqualifies their provider of choice?

“We, obviously, think that the court should answer no, that people can’t go into federal court to raise these kinds of lawsuits because that diverts money from the people it’s supposed to help and it allows activist organizations like Planned Parenthood to get off the hook with a favorable federal court ruling when a state has really good reasons to exclude them from the Medicaid program,” said Bursch.

Giving states the right to disqualify certain providers

The plaintiff alongside Planned Parenthood in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic is Julie Edwards, a birth control client of Planned Parenthood until South Carolina disqualified the organization from its Medicaid program.

Edwards, who lives with multiple serious health concerns, including type one diabetes, partial blindness, and nerve damage, sued the state based on the argument that she should be able to use her preferred provider — in this case, Planned Parenthood. However, while she may argue that Planned Parenthood is her preferred provider, the limited-services facility could provide her birth control but could not meet her other health care needs.

Yet, the qualified Medicaid-funded health care center located just over a mile away would have been able to provide her with the birth control she wanted, plus treatments for additional health concerns, explained Bursch.

If the Court rules against Planned Parenthood, it would “affirm that Congress never intended for Medicaid recipients to force states into federal lawsuits over provider qualifications or for courts to override states’ reasonable decisions about who is qualified to provide care,” said Bursch.

Such a ruling would mean that any state that has attempted to disqualify Planned Parenthood from its Medicaid program but has thus far been blocked by courts would then be free to do so without the risk of a lawsuit.

He noted that another reason that states may be looking to defund Planned Parenthood is that in addition to being the number one abortion business in the country, it is the second largest provider of gender ‘transition’ drugs in the nation — including, in some limited cases, cross-sex hormones for minors.

If successful in appealing the lower court’s ruling, Borsch believes states will be quick to disqualify Planned Parenthood and that some states have already found success in doing so. Borsch said:

In Texas, for example, they disqualified Planned Parenthood and they were successful in the Fifth Circuit en banc, but in many other states — because they’ve been forbidden from doing that by federal court rulings — I think you would quickly see them reinstate disqualification decisions and there might even be some states in the middle that don’t necessarily have the strong objection to abortion that look at the sorted practices and the diversion of money and this gender transition drug development and say, ‘We don’t really want them part of our program either. We would prefer our Medicaid dollars go to real healthcare clinics that provide women actual care.’

Patients have many other options besides Planned Parenthood

Previously, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled against allowing the state to disqualify Planned Parenthood as a Medicaid provider. If the Supreme Court rules that South Carolina acted outside of its rights when it disqualified Planned Parenthood and any abortion business just because they commit abortions, that decision would be permanent and would take years of legal action to undo.

“We’re eager to take that right of South Carolina and every state back so that they can decide which providers are worthy of receiving Medicaid funds and not, and Planned Parenthood is clearly one that is not,” said Bursch. He noted that there are many other options for patients using Medicaid; there are just two Planned Parenthood facilities in the state compared to 200 publicly funded qualified healthcare clinics that provide a wide range of services.