In Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, South Carolina wants to withhold Medicaid funds from abortion facilities and abortion businesses that include Planned Parenthood.
After South Carolina determined that Planned Parenthood was not qualified to receive taxpayer funding as part of its Medicaid program, a federal district court forced the state to restore Planned Parenthood’s funding, concluding that Medicaid recipients have a right to choose their preferred provider.
Gabriella McIntyre of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the law firm representing South Carolina, tells AFN that "the American people should not be forced to fund activist organizations … that perform abortions" and distribute "dangerous gender-transition drugs to minors."
Planned Parenthood and its supporters have long claimed that they offer services beyond abortion, but McIntyre says Planned Parenthood is not a real healthcare provider and should not receive Medicaid funds.
"There are roughly 200 publicly funded healthcare clinics in South Carolina that provide a broad range of high-quality healthcare services," she notes. "States need to be free to fund that real comprehensive care and exclude organizations like Planned Parenthood, whose primary business is abortion, from their public funding."
McIntyre says the issues in the Dobbs case and this one are legally distinct, but one similarity between the two is the fact that the states have autonomy and authority under the Medicaid statute to make decisions about where taxpayer funding goes.
The Medicaid statute is meant to help low-income individuals, in this case low-income women, receive high-quality healthcare, and that is why states like South Carolina are trying to exclude organizations like Planned Parenthood that mostly do one thing: abortion.
The ADF attorney adds that the implications in this case extend beyond South Carolina and Planned Parenthood. A win for the state would mean other states will not be forced to waste their time and money on endless litigation that could be better spent on helping people.
