Supreme Court boots challenge to state defunding Planned Parenthood in major pro-life victory

The Supreme Court has ruled that South Carolina has the power to block Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood clinics, in a technical interpretation over healthcare choices that has emerged as a larger political fight over abortion access.

The case, Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, centers on whether low-income Medicaid patients can sue in order to choose their own qualified healthcare provider. The federal-state program has shared responsibility for funding and administering it, through private healthcare providers.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster had been pushing to block public health dollars from going to Planned Parenthood, but a resident and patient at Planned Parenthood South Atlantic argued that doing so violated her rights under the Medicaid Act. 

SUPREME COURT DIVIDED OVER STATE EFFORT TO DEFUND PLANNED PARENTHOOD

Protestors gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court as oral arguments are delivered in the case of Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic on April 2, 2025 in Washington D.C.  (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

The key provision in the 1965 Medicaid Act guarantees patients a "free choice of provider" that is willing and qualified. Much of the conflict dealt with whether Planned Parenthood was a "qualified provider" under the Medicaid law, and whether individual patients have an unambiguous "right" to sue to see their provider of choice, under its specific language.

Federal law already prohibits Medicaid money from going to pay for abortions, with very limited exceptions. South Carolina bans almost all abortions around six weeks after conception, or when cardiac activity is detected, with limited exceptions.

In South Carolina, Medicaid patients often seek out Planned Parenthood because it accepts publicly funded insurance. Blocking the provider from Medicaid networks could effectively defund it.

There are just two Planned Parenthood clinics in South Carolina, but every year they take hundreds of low-income patients for reproductive healthcare, including contraception, cancer screenings and pregnancy testing, according to the Associated Press.

Planned Parenthood South Atlantic has argued that the case is not about abortion, but about access to general healthcare. 

Alliance Defending Freedom lawyer John Bursch, representing South Carolina, arrives to speak outside the U.S. Supreme Court on April 2, 2025.  (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

SUPREME COURT WILL HEAR PRO-LIFE NONPROFIT'S FREE SPEECH FIGHT AGAINST NEW JERSEY

The case stretches back to 2018, before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, when McMaster signed an executive order directing the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to remove abortion clinics, including Planned Parenthood South Atlantic (PPSAT), from the state's Medicaid provider list. The governor said Medicaid money for the state's two Planned Parenthood clinics amounted to taxpayers subsidizing abortions. 

The action essentially barred low-income patients from receiving other services from PPSAT in Columbia and Charleston, including gynecological exams, birth control, cancer screenings, and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Lower courts had put that order on hold, leading to the current case.

A pro-choice demonstrator holds a sign in front of the U.S. Supreme Court as Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic is heard, Wednesday, April 2, 2025.  (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

The conservative group Alliance Defending Freedom has argued that a win for South Carolina would still mean Medicaid patients could go to one of 200 other publicly funded healthcare clinics in the state. 

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The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals previously sided with Planned Parenthood, ruling that Medicaid patients can sue over their legal right to choose their own qualified provider.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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