Justices to Hear Case on South Carolina's Bid to Defund Planned Parenthood

[In It to Win It]

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The Supreme Court agreed on Wednesday to consider whether South Carolina may eliminate Medicaid funding for any medical services offered by Planned Parenthood because it performs abortions.

Medicaid gives federal money to states to provide medical care for poor people, but it sets some conditions. One is that eligible participants may obtain assistance from any provider qualified to perform the required services.

Planned Parenthood clinics in Charleston and Columbia provide counseling, physical exams, contraception and screenings for cancer and sexually transmitted infections. Abortions are banned in South Carolina after six weeks of pregnancy, and, even then, federal law prohibits the use of Medicaid funding except in life-threatening circumstances or in cases of rape or incest.

In 2018, South Carolina’s governor, Henry McMaster, a Republican, ordered state officials to deny Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood, saying that “payment of taxpayer funds to abortion clinics, for any purpose, results in the subsidy of abortion and the denial of the right to life.”

Planned Parenthood and a patient who sought contraception sued, and a federal trial judge blocked the directive, saying that it ran afoul of Medicaid’s provision offering a free choice of provider.