The Supreme Court handed anti-abortion activists a victory on Thursday by rejecting Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit challenging South Carolina’s decision to remove it from the state Medicaid program.
The high court ruled 6-3 that Planned Parenthood and a patient were not able to sue the state to enforce the any-qualified-provider provision of Medicaid law. The lawsuit began when Gov. Henry McMaster (R-SC) signed an order in 2018 disqualifying abortion providers, such as Planned Parenthood, from Medicaid reimbursements, even for non-abortion services.
The majority opinion, authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, ruled that there is no right to sue over McMaster’s order. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett joined the majority opinion.
“The job of resolving how best to weigh those competing costs and benefits belong to the people’s elected representatives, not unelected judges charged with applying the law as they find it,” Gorsuch said in the majority opinion.
The majority opinion also rebutted the plaintiff’s reliance on a precedent in which the Supreme Court ruled that individuals could sue the state over federal benefits. Gorsuch highlighted that, in Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County v. Talevski, Congress enacted clear, enforceable patient rights under the Federal Nursing Home Reform Act. A similar provision is not part of the federal Medicaid statute.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote a scathing dissent, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, in which she claimed the “project of stymying one of the country’s great civil rights laws continues,” referring to the Civil Rights Act of 1871.
“That venerable provision permits any citizen to obtain redress in federal court for ‘the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws’ of the United States. South Carolina asks us to hollow out that provision so that the State can evade liability for violating the rights of its Medicaid recipients to choose their own doctors,” Jackson said.
“The Court abides South Carolina’s request. I would not. For that reason, I respectfully dissent,” Jackson added.
Jackson argued in her dissent that the federal Medicaid statute “indisputably invokes language classically associated with establishing rights.”
“If Congress did not want to protect Medicaid recipients’ freedom to choose their own providers, it would have likely avoided using a combination of classically compulsory language and explicit individual-centeric terminology,” Jackson wrote.
“Congress’s intent could not have been clearer,” Jackson said.
Erik Baptist, senior counsel and director of the Center for Life at Alliance Defending Freedom, said the decision will allow states to “direct taxpayer funds towards clinics that will benefit women and families” rather than to clinics that provide abortions.
“This decision is a big win for the people of South Carolina, and it reflects the sentiment of the American people who don’t want their tax dollars propping up the abortion industry,” Baptist said Thursday. “Planned Parenthood is not a real healthcare provider.”
“It is a multibillion-dollar activist organization with a track record of putting radical abortion and gender identity politics over people. It has been at the center of scandals for years, and it shouldn’t receive another dime of Americans’ hard-earned money,” Baptist added.
Paige Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, slammed the decision as a “grave injustice.” Johnson also said the group would continue to operate in South Carolina despite the ruling.
“Planned Parenthood South Atlantic will continue to operate and offer care in South Carolina, including for people enrolled in Medicaid. To our patients, we will do everything in our power to ensure you can get the care you need at low or no cost to you,” Johnson said Thursday. “Know that we are still here for you and we will never stop fighting for you to reclaim the rights and dignity you deserve.”
While the question at the center of the case was not directly tied to abortion, the decision paves the way for other states to strip abortion providers’ ability to receive Medicaid funds.
Katie Daniel, director of legal affairs and policy counsel for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, hailed the decision and said Planned Parenthood was “rightly disqualified” from receiving Medicaid funds.
“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,” Daniel said Thursday.
“Pro-life Republican leaders are eliminating government waste and prioritizing Medicaid for those who need it most – women, children, the poor, people with disabilities. Planned Parenthood was rightly disqualified,” she added.
The Supreme Court’s decision was handed down as congressional Republicans are attempting to implement a similar provision at the federal level that would prohibit all federal Medicaid dollars from going to health centers that perform elective abortions.
REPUBLICANS SETTLE INTO POST-DOBBS REALITY FOR 2026 ELECTION
The provision in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act is currently being reviewed under Senate rules, so its fate is still uncertain.
Anti-abortion advocates have been attempting to defund Planned Parenthood at the federal and state levels since the late 1970s.
