The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that states have the authority to ban Planned Parenthood from participating in Medicaid programs. This decision overturns an earlier appeals court ruling that opposed South Carolina's attempt to defund the organization, which is the nation’s largest abortion provider.
The Court issued its opinion in the Medina v. Planned Parenthood case on Thursday morning, holding 6-3 that federal law does not prevent states from excluding abortion providers from Medicaid.
Justice Neil Gorsuch authored the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
In his opinion, Gorsuch wrote, “To prove that a statute secures an enforceable right, privilege, or immunity, and does not just provide a benefit or protect an interest, a plaintiff must show that the law in question ‘clear[ly] and unambiguous[ly]’ uses ‘rights-creating terms.’”
He argued that “after announcing that state Medicaid plans must allow individuals to obtain care from any qualified provider, the provision proceeds to carve out various exceptions to that rule… Neither paragraph [in the statute] uses clear and unambiguous rights-creating language, so neither supports a private suit under [42 United States Code §1983].”
Gorsuch further explained that there is a “longstanding line between mere benefits and enforceable rights,” and that it is “up to Congress to provide states with ‘clear and unambiguous notice of an individually enforceable right.’”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, arguing that “under a faithful application of our unambiguous-conferral test, the Medicaid Act’s free-choice-of-provider provision readily creates an enforceable right.”
Jackson added, “to prevent States from interfering with Medicaid recipients’ freedom to choose their own providers, Congress adopted nearly identical language from a provision of the Medicare Act that — in both purpose and effect — had guaranteed that right to Medicare beneficiaries.”
Jackson emphasized that “Congress made a deliberate choice to protect Medicaid recipients’ ability to choose their own providers by employing statutory language that it knew, based on its Medicare experience, would achieve that end,” and stated, “Congress’s intent could not have been clearer.”
The case originated from a 2018 order by South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, directing the Department of Health and Human Services to terminate Medicaid agreements with abortion providers.
Planned Parenthood, which operated two facilities in the state, filed suit, and a federal district court blocked the enforcement of the order. In March 2024, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that lower court ruling unanimously.
