Washington A long-running case in South Carolina involving the state’s effort to bar the health care provider Planned Parenthood from taking part in the Medicaid health program was taken up by the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
The technical legal question is whether Medicaid recipients, a state-run program for low-income individuals, can file a lawsuit to select the qualified healthcare provider of their choice.
South Carolina, which is headed by Republicans, has long aimed to prevent Planned Parenthood from being covered by Medicaid due to the organization’s abortion services. Since the Supreme Court’s historic Roe v. Wade ruling in 2022, which abolished the constitutional right to an abortion, the state’s legal environment has transformed. Abortions are becoming less common in South Carolina since the state has banned them entirely after six weeks.
In accordance with the new prohibition, Planned Parenthood’s Charleston and Columbia locations now offer restricted abortion services in addition to other medical services like pregnancy testing, cancer screenings, and contraception.
Following a ruling in 2018 that determined abortion clinics could not offer family planning services under Medicaid, Julie Edwards, a patient who want to use Planned Parenthood to receive contraception treatments, joined the group in suing the state.
Since a district court judge decided that the state could not prevent Planned Parenthood from taking part in the program, the case has been rehashed again.
Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal organization, is representing state officials in the case.
In a statement, one of the group’s attorneys, John Bursch, said, “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.”
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