Supreme Court Case Could Allow States to Strip Medicaid Funding from Planned Parenthood

Praise-and-worship music clashed with shouts of “Abortion is health care” as pro-life protesters and abortion supporters rallied outside the United States Supreme Court Wednesday during oral arguments in a case that could decide whether states can disqualify Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid reimbursements. 

When South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster disqualified Planned Parenthood from receiving taxpayer funding under Medicaid in 2018, the abortion provider filed a federal lawsuit, and a district court forced the state to restore its funding. Medicaid is a health insurance program for the poor that is jointly funded with state and federal taxpayer dollars. 

In this case, Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, South Carolina, represented by the Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, is asking the court to affirm its ability to direct taxpayer funding away from abortion providers like Planned Parenthood. 

“Americans should not be forced to fund activist organizations like Planned Parenthood that perform abortions and provide dangerous gender-transition drugs to minors,” legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom Gabriella McIntyre told The Daily Signal outside the court.  

“States should be able to direct their limited taxpayer funds to real health care, comprehensive health care, high-quality health care in their states, and exclude organizations like Planned Parenthood—whose primary business is abortion—from that public funding,” she said. “Americans simply don’t want to use their taxpayer dollars to prop up the abortion industry.”  

The narrow legal question addresses whether the Medicaid Act’s “any qualified provider” provision unambiguously allows a Medicaid beneficiary to choose a specific medical provider and whether the individual beneficiary can sue to vindicate that right. In this case, Medicaid beneficiary Julie Edwards was denied coverage after obtaining services at Planned Parenthood South Atlantic.  

During oral arguments that lasted more than an hour, Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel John Bursch argued the Medicaid Act does not create a right for an individual beneficiary to sue in federal court because its “any qualified provider” provision does not use unambiguous rights-creating language. 

Bursch said state officials should be able to determine which health care providers can accept taxpayer funding through Medicaid without being dragged into court by a beneficiary.  

“What the court has to decide is if in these spending clause statues, where the federal government sends money to states to administer care … if Congress has used such clear, explicit rights-creating language that it gives the beneficiary the ability to go to federal court,” Bursch told The Daily Signal. “Our contention is that this provider provision does not have any language like that.” 

During the arguments, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan challenged Bursch as to what clear language in the Medicaid Act conferring such a right would look like. 

“The fact that there was such a large disagreement among the justices and the lawyers as to what the language meant—that’s the very ambiguity that is the opposite of clear, unambiguous rights-creating language,” Bursch said.  

Legal counsel for Planned Parenthood South Atlantic Nicole Saharsky argued Edwards may bring her federal suit against South Carolina because federal law uses rights-creating language—if not the word “right”—to allow an individual Medicaid beneficiary to obtain care from any qualified and willing provider.

Former Planned Parenthood center director Mayra Rodriguez joined the rally outside, urging the court to allow states to disqualify the abortion provider from Medicaid funding. 

“We have many life-affirming other places where women can go with their whole family to be taken care of,” Rodriguez said. “That’s what I want for low-income people. I want them to go in a place where they will be taken care of completely, where if she came out with her Pap smear abnormal, she will not be referred and thrown back out there not knowing where to go.” 

Rodriguez worked for Planned Parenthood for 17 years as a center director before being fired for accusing the abortion provider of misusing funds and harming women during abortions.  

One Planned Parenthood supporter outside the court said the decision in this case would hurt those who cannot afford to travel to other states for abortions. 

“If they’re not given the resources to have safe abortions in all states, you’re just going to have these pockets of vulnerable groups of women who have been systematically just constantly beaten down,” Anamika Goswami said. “They are the ones who are going to be most impacted by this.”

Katie Daniel, director of legal affairs for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said states and the voters in them should decide how their taxpayer money is spent.

“This is an administration that has set as a priority good stewardship of our tax dollars,” Daniel told The Daily Signal outside the court. “The whole effort of DOGE [the Department of Government Efficiency] is revisiting the assumption that every dollar is going to a good, useful place. We think that abortion is a great place to start.”

Pro-life protester and Christopher Newport University student Pinnie Francis said the case is an important step toward defunding and abolishing abortion. 

“I believe that it is not right for us to pay our taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood,” Francis said. “It is not something that I support, so my taxpayer money should not go towards it.” 

Planned Parenthood did not follow up on The Daily Signal’s request for comment, but President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund Alexis McGill Johnson issued a statement saying Planned Parenthood will not back down from a fight.