Supreme Court to Decide Major Case About Defunding Planned Parenthood

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Wednesday to hear a case that could decide whether pro-life states can direct Medicaid funds—which are intended to help low-income individuals obtain necessary medical assistance—away from abortion providers like Planned Parenthood.

The case, known as Kerr v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, stems from South Carolina's decision to designate Planned Parenthood and similar abortion providers as disqualified from receiving taxpayers' Medicaid funds. 

Specifically, Governor Henry McMaster mandated the state's Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to make that decision and divert the same funds to women's clinics that perform a wider range of medical services.

Planned Parenthood and one of its patients, Julie Edwards, sued the Director of DHHS in federal court to force DHHS to restore taxpayer funding to the $2-billion-per-year abortion giant.

They argued that cutting its funding violated a Medicaid Act provision that gives beneficiaries the right to choose their provider, CBS News reports. 

Jenny Black, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, said, "This case is politics at its worst: anti-abortion politicians using their power to target Planned Parenthood and block people who use Medicaid as their primary form of insurance from getting essential health care like cancer screenings and birth control." 

A federal district court ruled against the state and forced them to permanently restore taxpayer funding to Planned Parenthood. 

Alliance Defending Freedom, a non-profit legal group, is representing the director of the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and appealed the ruling before the 4th Circuit.

That court upheld the federal court's decision to restore Planned Parenthood as a Medicaid provider. 

Now, the ADF has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case and affirm 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." 

"Taxpayer dollars should never be used to fund facilities that make a profit off abortion," said ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of Appellate Advocacy John Bursch. "Pro-life states like South Carolina should be free to determine that Planned Parenthood and other entities that peddle abortion are not qualified to receive taxpayer funding through Medicaid."

This is not the first time this case has gone before the Supreme Court. 

Last year, the high court sent the case back to the 4th Circuit of Appeals after its decision in Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County v. Talevski, where it ruled that nursing home residents could sue their state-owned healthcare facility over alleged violations of civil rights.

The three-judge panel ruled in March that Julie Edwards' lawsuit could move forward and that the state could not strip Planned Parenthood of its Medicaid funding. 

"This case is, and always has been, about whether Congress conferred an individually enforceable right for Medicaid beneficiaries to freely choose their healthcare provider. 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," Judge Harvie Wilkinson wrote for the panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.

This will be the third time South Carolina has asked the Supreme Court to take up the case. 

The high court has finally agreed to take up the question of whether "the Medicaid Act's any-qualified provider provision unambiguously confers a private right upon a Medicaid beneficiary to choose a specific provider."

Bursch argues, "Congress did not unambiguously create a right for Medicaid recipients to drag states into federal court to challenge those decisions, so no such right exists. Applying the Supreme Court's recent decision in the Talevski case, we expect the court to hold that Congress did not intend to allow federal courts to second guess states' decisions about which providers are qualified to receive Medicaid funding."

Currently, a permanent injunction is in place allowing Planned Parenthood South Atlantic (PPSAT) in Columbia and Charleston to be a South Carolina Medicaid provider while the case proceeds.

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