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“The Supreme Court [last] Thursday ruled that a South Carolina woman and Planned Parenthood do not have a legal right, known as standing, to bring a lawsuit challenging South Carolina’s decision to exclude Planned Parenthood from the state’s Medicaid program on the basis that the organization provides abortions…
“Federal law generally bars the use of Medicaid funds for abortions, but Planned Parenthood can receive the funds for other services. But in 2018 South Carolina’s governor, Henry McMaster, directed the state’s Department of Health and Human Services to exclude Planned Parenthood from the Medicaid program. He reasoned that because money is fungible, Planned Parenthood’s receipt of Medicaid funds effectively subsidized its abortion services…
“By a vote of 6-3, the court, in an opinion written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, held that a provision of the Medicaid Act requiring states to ensure that Medicaid patients can obtain care from ‘any qualified provider’ does not create the kind of clear and unambiguous right required under the Supreme Court’s cases to allow private lawsuits alleging violations of the provision…
“The court emphasized that although federal civil rights laws allow private actors to sue government officials who violate their constitutional rights and their rights under federal law, federal laws ‘do not confer ‘rights’ enforceable’ under civil rights laws ‘as a matter of course.’ This is especially true, Gorsuch continued, for laws – such as the Medicaid Act – that Congress passes using its spending power, which ‘allows Congress to offer funds to States that agree to certain conditions.’ When a state fails to comply with conditions that Congress has placed on the receipt of funds, Gorsuch noted, the remedy is usually the termination of the funds by the federal government, not a private lawsuit.” SCOTUSblog
“The Senate version of President Donald Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ narrowly passed on Tuesday with a provision included that would prohibit federal Medicaid funding for any health care services provided by Planned Parenthood for one year.” Time Magazine
The left criticizes both the Supreme Court decision and the cuts in the Senate bill.
“This decision enables an aggressive expansion of the states’ power to put the political preferences of Republican lawmakers between women and gender-nonconforming people and their doctors… The result is a de facto ban not just on abortion, but on any healthcare provision by pro-choice providers for vast swaths of American women. One in three women in the US has received services from Planned Parenthood; more than half of American Black women have…
“These Medicaid-enrolled women have now been denied the right to choose a doctor for their most intimate care based on their own comfort and values: instead, they will be forced to choose one based on the whims and bigotries of elected Republicans. In her dissent… Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that the decision will strip patients ‘of a deeply personal freedom: ‘the ability to decide who treats us at our most vulnerable’’.”
Moira Donegan, The Guardian
“As a result of [this] decision, the only way to enforce the Medicaid Act’s guarantee that patients can choose where they get their health care is for the federal government, here the Trump administration, to threaten a state’s Medicaid funds. Everyone knows the Trump administration isn’t going to lift a finger to help providers like Planned Parenthood and the Medicaid recipients who rely on them…
“65% percent of rural areas have a shortage of primary care physicians. Ten million women live in counties where there is not a single OB/GYN. Planned Parenthood is one of the providers trying to fill this yawning gap; more than seventy percent of Planned Parenthood’s locations are in rural areas… [Now] Patients will be forced to seek another provider—and there may be none to be found.”
Leah Litman, The Contrarian
“In 21 percent of counties with a Planned Parenthood health center, it is the only facility that provides reproductive healthcare services to low-income people. Millions of patients who rely on Planned Parenthood as their only accessible source of birth control, pregnancy tests, and cancer screenings would be deprived of critical care…
“Abortion only constitutes about 4 percent of the medical services Planned Parenthood provides annually; nevertheless, forced birth advocates have wanted to take down Planned Parenthood for decades…
“Since outright banning abortion is unpopular, conservatives use legal workarounds to make abortion unavailable and unaffordable… The [Senate] bill would prohibit Medicaid from reimbursing organizations that provide healthcare to low-income people if (1) the organization’s available services include abortion, and (2) the organization received over $800,000 in Medicaid funds in Fiscal Year 2023. Planned Parenthood is the only organization that fits that description.”
Madiba K. Dennie, Balls and Strikes
The right praises both the Supreme Court decision and the cuts in the Senate bill.
The right praises both the Supreme Court decision and the cuts in the Senate bill.
“Despite the fact that South Carolina had just two Planned Parenthood clinics at the time and that there were over 140 other federally qualified health clinics and pregnancy centers in the state that were still eligible for the program, one Medicaid recipient claimed that she had had ‘especially positive experiences’ at Planned Parenthood in the past… The state’s decision to exclude Planned Parenthood from its Medicaid program, this woman argued, was a constitutional violation of her civil rights…
“Medicaid did not exist until 1965, and abortion was not forced on South Carolina until Roe v. Wade in 1973. It is beyond preposterous to claim that the authors of the Civil Rights Act, who were very much concerned with local officials beating and terrorizing black people, thought they were also creating a taxpayer-funded right to abortion when they wrote Section 1983 into the statute.”
Editorial Board, Washington Examiner
“Abortion extremists have long tried to force everyone to subsidize their agenda… One way is for Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, to seek taxpayer money by claiming that those dollars will be used for medical services other than abortion. But as everyone knows, money is fungible—making this nothing but a bookkeeping gimmick aimed at keeping the abortion mills humming.”
Thomas Jipping and Daniel Davidson, Daily Signal
“In the past year, Planned Parenthood performed more than 400,000 abortions while cutting its non-abortion services drastically. Pap smears are down more than 50 percent, and cancer screenings overall continue to plummet. Meanwhile, the number of abortions and trans treatments continue to increase. A recent New York Times exposé revealed dangerous and degrading conditions in its facilities. In the article, staffers from across the country talk about open sewage and botched abortions…
“Staffers complained that Planned Parenthood headquarters explicitly kept donor funds from affiliates, barring them from improving medical standards. Instead, they exposed the fact that leadership poured millions into political campaigns, lobbying and — you guessed it — lawsuits. This is not a health care provider in any meaningful sense. It is a political machine, and it treats Medicaid as its ATM…
“The responsibility now shifts to Congress to do what the states have started: defund Big Abortion once and for all. Women, children, and families deserve better than an industry that profits from loss and litigates to protect its bottom line. Community health centers, pregnancy-resource centers, and private providers offer a compassionate, life-affirming alternative — and they outnumber Planned Parenthood 15 to 1 nationwide.”
Katie Daniel, National Review
