The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear a case that could determine the future of government funding for abortion provider Planned Parenthood.
The case, Kerr v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, arose after Gov. Henry McMaster (R-SC) in 2018 declared by executive order that abortion clinics were unqualified to receive Medicaid funding.
Planned Parenthood swiftly sued in federal court, and a federal district court ordered that the state permanently restore the abortion provider’s funding.
The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals also ruled in favor of Planned Parenthood on appeal twice, once after an initial challenge from South Carolina and once after the Supreme Court ordered that the case be reexamined after a new precedent was decided in 2022.
Alliance Defending Freedom, the conservative advocacy law firm representing the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, argued that federal Medicaid statutes do not create a right for Medicaid recipients to sue states.
“Taxpayer dollars should never be used to fund facilities that make a profit off abortion,” said ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of Appellate Advocacy John Bursch in a press statement. “Pro-life states like South Carolina should be free to determine that Planned Parenthood and other entities that peddle abortion are not qualified to receive taxpayer funding through Medicaid.”
ADF has a long history of anti-abortion judicial advocacy, arguing on behalf of the state of Mississippi in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case that resulted in the overturning of federal abortion protections under Roe v. Wade.
The group also more recently argued on behalf of anti-abortion physicians petitioning the courts against the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion pill mifepristone.
“We expect the court to hold that Congress did not intend to allow federal courts to second guess states’ decisions about which providers are qualified to receive Medicaid funding,” said Bursch.
President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America Alexis McGill Johnson said the decision to hear Kerr proves, “People’s ability to choose their sexual and reproductive health care provider is in jeopardy.”
“This case is politics at its worst: anti-abortion politicians using their power to target Planned Parenthood and block people who use Medicaid as their primary form of insurance from getting essential health care like cancer screenings and birth control,” Jenny Black, president of PPSAT
Melanie Israel, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation and religious freedom expert, celebrated the announcement on X.
“Planned Parenthood gets more than half a billion of YOUR tax dollars each year, most of it through Medicaid reimbursements,” said Israel. “The American people shouldn’t be forced to help prop up the abortion industry.”
According to a Planned Parenthood financial report from August of this year, 43% of the Planned Parenthood national budget in 2014-2015 came from government reimbursements and grants.
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“Out of the $1.29 billion in total revenue, $553.7 million came from the government reimbursing Planned Parenthood for providing medical services covered by programs such as Medicaid or from government grants from the Department of Health and Human Services,” says the Planned Parenthood report.
The Court is likely to hear oral arguments in the case in the spring of next year, with a final decision published by June.
Supreme Court reporter Kaelan Deese contributed to this report.