Defund Planned Parenthood, Because Our Tax Dollars Shouldn’t Support an Abortion Business
The U.S. Supreme Court is slated to determine whether or not states can refuse to fund Planned Parenthood. On Wednesday, the court released a miscellaneous order accepting a petition for a writ of certiorari in the case Kerr v. Planned Parenthood. The court will be asked to determine whether “the Medicaid Act’s any-qualified provider provision unambiguously confers a private right upon a Medicaid beneficiary to choose a specific provider.”
In 2018, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster (R) barred Medicaid funding from going to abortion giant Planned Parenthood, with McMaster explaining that even though Medicaid funding cannot legally go directly toward an abortion, funding Planned Parenthood still “results in the subsidy of abortion and the denial of the right to life.” Planned Parenthood and a patient sued the state, arguing that Medicaid funding could still be given to Planned Parenthood provided that it was not for the purposes of committing an abortion. A U.S. district court subsequently blocked South Carolina from enforcing McMaster’s order in 2020.
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The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district court’s decision earlier this year. Reagan-appointed Judge Harvie Wilkinson wrote in his opinion, “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.” He further argued that “if Planned Parenthood clinics in South Carolina were to be shuttered, other Medicaid-funded clinics in the state would be more hard-pressed to meet the demand in family planning care.”
In comments to The Washington Stand, Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, said, “This case is very simple. States that want to protect taxpayer dollars from being used to kill unborn children should be able to do so.”
McMaster said, in response to the Supreme Court accepting the case, “Taxpayer dollars should never fund abortion providers like Planned Parenthood. In 2018, I issued an executive order to end this practice in South Carolina. I’m confident the U.S. Supreme Court will agree with me that states shouldn’t be forced to subsidize abortions.”
Nonprofit legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed the petition that the Supreme Court accepted Wednesday and has been representing South Carolina in the case. In a press release, ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of Appellate Advocacy John Bursch stated, “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.”
He argued, “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.” Bursch said that he expects the Supreme 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.” He added, “Taxpayer dollars should never be used to fund facilities that make a profit off abortion.”
In 2020, the Supreme Court rejected a petition from South Carolina to intervene in the case. However, South Carolina has argued that the court’s subsequent ruling in 2023’s Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County v. Talevski altered the legal landscape and bolstered the state’s case. In Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County v. Talevski, the court considered whether or not an individual had the right to sue health care providers for violating statutes enacted under Congress’s Spending Clause power. The court ruled that such a right does exist, with conservative stalwarts Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissenting. Therefore, the court sent South Carolina’s case to the Fourth Circuit Court and has since agreed to take up the state’s petition for a writ of certiorari.
LifeNews Note: S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.