The Supreme Court gives Trump a victory with a ruling against Planned Parenthood

The Supreme Court effectively ruled on Thursday morning that South Carolina can exclude Planned Parenthood of its Medicaid programs because the National Medical Care Organization also offers abortion care. The decision will deny hundreds of thousands of low -income patients their only option for medical care and pavement a path for other states to do the same.

Ruling 6-3, written by Judge Neil Gorsuch, reversed a decision of the 4th circuit court and sent the case. Judges Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor dismit.

“Medicaid offers the states” a bargain. “In exchange for federal funds, states agree to” spend them according to the conditions imposed by Congress, “Gorsuch wrote in the opinion.

“If a State does not substantially complies with these conditions, the Secretary of Health and Human Services can retain some or all its federal medicaid funds,” Gorsuch continued. “This case raises the question of whether, in addition to that remedy, the individual beneficiaries of Medicaid can sue state officials for not complying with a financing status …”

It is the first ruling of the Superior Court related to abortion and reproductive rights since the return of President Donald Trump, whose administration in February joined the case with South Carolina. The decision is a victory for the Trump administration, which has made a priority to update the objective of the Republican Party to disburse Planned Parenthood.

Medina v. Planned Parenthood Atlántico Sur focused on the technical issue of whether medical -covered patients could demand to claim the right to use Planned Parenthood as a medical care provider. Federal Medicaid rules allow patients to access the care of any supplier that is both qualified to provide attention and willing To provide attention, a provision known as “free choice of the supplier”.

Now, the Court has ruled that the beneficiaries of Medicaid of South Carolina do not have the right to sue a State if its chosen provider of the Medicaid program ends for reasons not related to the competition, opening the door to the suppliers that will be excluded from the program for political reasons.

The court ruling is not currently in force. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic told journalists on Thursday that all health centers in South Carolina Planned Parenthood will continue to offer care to all patients, including those enrolled in Medicaid.

“The project to prevent one of the country’s great civil rights laws.”

– Ketanji Brown Jackson Justice

Jackson wrote a scathing dissent, comparing the decision of the Superior Court to deny the coverage of Medicaid under certain suppliers with the reversal of rights after the civil war.

“The Civil Rights Law of 1871 was an exercise of great ambition. It had to be,” Jackson wrote in his dissent. “In the Wake of the Civil War, The American South Was Consumed by A Wave of Terrorist Violence Designed to Disenfranchise and Intimidate The Country’s Newly Freed Citizens and ES Intervention

“A century and a half later, the project to prevent one of the country’s great civil rights laws continues,” he added.

Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of the Federation of America of Planned Parenthood, criticized the opinion on Thursday morning.

“Today, the Supreme Court once again put on the side of politicians who believe they know better than you, who want you to see your confidence medical care provider and make your own medical care decisions,” he said.

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, INC through Getty Images

The decision comes from a 2018 case in which a medical beneficiary demanded the governor of South Carolina, Henry McMaster (R) after him. issued An executive order to cancel Medicaid coverage for all abortion suppliers in the state. “Taxpayers’ dollars should not directly or indirectly subsidize abortion suppliers such as Planned Parenthood,” McMaster said At the moment. In doing so, he also cut the patients covered with Medicaid to use the numerous other services that are not abortion provided by clinics such as Planned Parenthood, which include sexually transmitted infection and treatment exams, contraceptive care and well -being exams.

Medicaid already generally cannot be used for abortions. The Hyde amendment prohibits the use of federal funds, including Medicaid, covering abortion unless it is in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the pregnant person is in danger. The argument of the right that federal dollars are allocated to the care of abortion is inaccurate and is used as a rear door shape to break down Planned Parenthood.

“Today’s decision is a serious injustice that attacks the basis of American freedom and promises to send a deeper Carolina to a medical care crisis,” Paige Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, said in a statement. “Twice, the judges of this court even denied this case because the intention of Governor McMaster is clear: he assembles the feeling against abortion to deprive communities with low income of basic medical care.”

There are two Health Centers of Planned Parenthood in South Carolina, one in Columbia and one in Charleston, which provide basic medical care services, including contraception, ITS treatment and cancer exams. The clinics Also provide abortion carebut the State currently has an abortion restriction, prohibiting attention after about six weeks of pregnancy. On 60% of the beneficiaries of Medicaid in South Carolina are women, and 20% Of all women of reproductive age in the state, they are covered by Medicaid.

“Today’s decision is a serious injustice that attacks the basis of American freedom and promises to send South Carolina more deeply to a medical care crisis.”

– Paige Johnson, Planned Parenthood Atlantic South

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the National Anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, held the ruling in a statement.

“The sauce train financed by Planned Parenthood taxpayers is quickly coming to an end,” Dannenfelser wrote. (Medicaid does not cover abortion attention unless in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the pregnant person is at risk). “” His days of impersonating a “reliable medical care provider” since the truth is exposed … The abortion industry promoted by profits is not interested in solving political problems and the planned organization. ”

In 14 of the 46 counties of South Carolina, there are doctors in practice of Ob-gin, and five other rural counties have only one, Dr. Katherine Farris, a family doctor and the medical director of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic told journalists before oral arguments in April.

Medicaid is the largest reproductive health care payer in the United States, subsidizing 75% of all family planning services financed with public funds ranging from Pap smears to treatment with high blood pressure and anxiety and depression exams. As Farris told journalists earlier this year, Medicaid reimbursements for suppliers are extremely low, discouraging clinics to accept Medicaid patients and hinder that patients find a supplier that accepts their insurance coverage.

“Even [those clinics] List as a Medicaid supplier, it is possible that they currently do not accept new patients with Medicaid, or they can have a waiting list, that is, days, weeks or even months, ”said Farris, and pointed out that Planned Parenthood does not limit the number of patients with medicaid they accept.

The decision racks the way for more states in the steps of South Carolina, and they are likely to do so. The strategy to disburse Planned Parenthood through the state plans of Medicaid arises directly from the extreme right Project 2025 Playbookwhich makes the Department of Health and Human Services do exactly what Carolina del Sur did, but at the federal level.

The Trump’s internal policy agenda, or the so -called Big Beautiful Bill, includes fund cuts that burn Planned Parenthood. The Reproductive Health Organization says that federal fund cuts are successful, would serve as a prohibition of abortion throughout the country, closing 1 in 4 Health Centers of Planned Parenthood that provide abortion care throughout the country. About 90% of these closures would be in states where abortion is currently legal.

“The Supreme Court has just given the green light to the states led by Republicans to destroy Planned Parenthood, which will have disastrous consequences for women throughout the country that depend on planned paternity centers for basic medical care, often in areas where there is no other place to receive attention that they can pay, “said Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash) in a statement.

“They are not mistaken: this attack on Planned Parenthood is not happening for another reason that because Republican anti -abortion extremists are foam in the mouth to close access to abortion care in any way they can, regardless of the consequences.”