U.S. Supreme Court to take up S.C.’s effort to defund Planned Parenthood

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) - South Carolina will once again be front and center before the US Supreme Court.

Justices for the nation’s highest court agreed Wednesday to take up a case challenging the state’s efforts to defund Planned Parenthood for non-abortion services.

The case started with an executive order Gov. Henry McMaster issued in 2018, prohibiting Planned Parenthood from participating in the state’s Medicaid program for services besides abortions, which federal law already bars from being funded through Medicaid.

Planned Parenthood said those services include birth control, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, and cancer screenings.

“South Carolinians who are working paycheck to paycheck, South Carolinians who cannot afford just basic, routine healthcare — that is really who is going to be most affected by this,” Molly Rivera with Planned Parenthood South Atlantic said.

The question that will be before the court is whether Medicaid recipients can sue, as one did in this case, to select the qualified provider they want.

The state has argued Planned Parenthood is not a qualified provider.

“Taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be used to fund facilities that choose to profit off abortion, and South Carolina is free to use its limited funding to subsidize life-affirming healthcare,” Alliance Defending Freedom Vice President of Appellate Advocacy John Bursch said. ADF is representing South Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the state’s Medicaid program, pro bono in the case.

But Planned Parenthood said its clinics are sometimes the only option for South Carolinians seeking reproductive healthcare, especially those with lower incomes.

“We have a shortage of healthcare providers here, especially a shortage of healthcare providers who will accept Medicaid,” Rivera said.

Lower courts have sided with Planned Parenthood in this case, allowing its clinics in Columbia and Charleston to keep accepting Medicaid patients.

But other states have faced similar challenges, and federal appeals courts are split on the issue, which attorneys representing the State of South Carolina said needs to be settled.

“The Supreme Court is in the business of making sure that federal statutes like the Medicaid Act apply universally across the country and that the rights are not different depending on the state where you happen to live, and so I think it was time for them to resolve this,” Bursch said.

In a statement, McMaster said, “Taxpayer dollars should never fund abortion providers like Planned Parenthood. In 2018, I issued an executive order to end this practice in South Carolina. I’m confident the US Supreme Court will agree with me that states shouldn’t be forced to subsidize abortions.”

The Supreme Court has not set yet a date for arguments in this case, though they are expected to be sometime next spring.

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