Supreme Court Rules States Can Defund Planned Parenthood

Life continues to win in America. Three years after Dobbs, the nation’s high court ruled in favor of South Carolina’s law that defunds Planned Parenthood.

Medina v. Planned Parenthood, ruled 6-3 by the court on Thursday June 26th, that South Carolina can excluded Planned Parenthood from Medicaid. South Carolina has banned nearly all abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy when a baby’s heartbeat can easily be detected since the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v Wade.

“But federal statutes do not automatically confer §1983-enforceable ‘rights,’” wrote Justice Gorsuch. “This is especially true of spending-power statutes like Medicaid, where ‘the typical remedy’ for violations is federal funding termination, not private suits.”

To prove a federal law creates a right, a statute must pass a “stringent and demanding test” by “clearly and unambiguously” using “rights-creating terms” that unmistakably focuses on individuals, wrote Justice Gorsuch. Unless Congress “speaks with a clear voice, and manifests an unambiguous intent to confer individual rights,” individual plaintiffs like Planned Parenthood or their patients cannot use spending-power laws to sue the state, reads the opinion.

“[The Medicaid Act] lacks the required clear rights-creating language,” wrote Justice Gorsuch.

“[P]rivate enforcement does not always benefit the public, not least because it requires States to divert money and attention away from social services and toward litigation,” the court wrote in its opinion. “And balancing those costs and benefits poses a question of public policy that, under our system of government, only Congress may answer.”

Even many conservative organizations have praised the ruling as a landmark. Many believe that other states could follow South Carolina’s lead in defunding the abortion giant.

“By rejecting Planned Parenthood’s lawfare, the Court not only saves countless unborn babies from a violent death and their mothers from dangerously shoddy ‘care,’ it also protects Medicaid from exposure to thousands of lawsuits from unqualified providers that would jeopardize the entire program. Katie Daniel, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America Director of Legal Affairs and Policy Counsel, praised.

It even received praised from President Donald Trump.

“I’ll let the President speak on that legislative priority, but as for the Supreme Court ruling, the President has always maintained that Americans should not be forced to violate their conscience and their religious liberty by having their tax dollars fund abortions,” Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt said. “We are glad the Supreme Court ruled on that side today,” she added.

Another domino has fallen. The Pro-Life Generation is winning in America. Life is winning in America. Keep on saving lives, one baby at a time.