Supreme Court Action Allows SC to Defund Planned Parenthood

Supreme Court Action Allows SC to Defund Planned Parenthood

The public funding of the largest abortion business in America is in jeopardy in South Carolina. 

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court tossed out a lower court’s decision to block South Carolina from terminating public funding to Planned Parenthood, which annually performs around 330,000 abortions.   

Supreme Court justices have asked the lower court to reexamine the case due to their 7-2 ruling of a similar lawsuit in Indiana, Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County v. Talevski

The debate is whether states have the right to bar Medicaid, a state-federal medical insurance program for low-income individuals, from Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers.

“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,” Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Chris Schandevel told LifeNews. “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.”

“The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Talevski makes that even clearer,” he continued. “And we’re grateful the 4th Circuit will have another opportunity 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.”

Planned Parenthood South Atlantic has clinics in Charleston and Columbia, South Carolina, which offer abortions (up to 14 weeks of pregnancy), gender-affirming hormone therapy, wellness visits, and other health services to hundreds of Medicaid patients yearly. 

When South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster passed a pro-life law that required the state’s Department of Health and Human Services to “terminate abortion clinics as Medicaid providers” in 2018, Planned Parenthood advocate and Medicaid patient Julie Edwards filed a lawsuit. 

A judge then ruled in the abortion giant’s favor and the state was prevented from enforcing the law. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals believed the judge’s ruling to be right and said Medicaid recipients can freely select a healthcare provider. 

Since that decision has been challenged by the Supreme Court, South Carolina again has the opportunity to keep taxpayer dollars from contributing to abortions and save unborn children’s lives. 

 
Above: Supreme Court of the United States, First Street Northeast, Washington, D.C.

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