Washington – The Supreme Court on Wednesday… Agreed South Carolina health department to consider effort to cut funding from Planned Parenthood because it performs abortions, plunging into another controversy over access to the procedure in its wake Roe vs. Wade reversal,
The case, known as Kerr v. Edwards, stems from the state's decision in 2018 to end Planned Parenthood South Atlantic's participation in its Medicaid program. Governor Henry McMaster, a Republican, directed the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services to deem abortion clinics ineligible to provide family planning services and terminate their Medicaid agreements.
Planned Parenthood operates two facilities in the state, one in Charleston and the other in Columbia, and provides services such as physicals, cancer and other health screenings, pregnancy testing and contraception to hundreds of Medicaid patients. Federal law prevents Medicaid from paying for abortions except in cases of rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother.
Planned Parenthood and one of its patients, Julie Edwards, sued the state, arguing that cutting its funding violates a provision of the Medicaid Act that gives beneficiaries the right to choose their own provider.
A federal district court blocked South Carolina from ending Planned Parenthood's participation in its Medicaid program, and a U.S. appeals court upheld that decision, finding that the Edwards Medicaid Act's free-choice-provider requirement Can sue the state to enforce it.
The legal fight has already gone before the Supreme Court, with the high court ordering additional proceedings after ruling in a separate case last year that nursing home residents were suing their state-owned health care facility over alleged violations of civil rights. Can sue.
After reconsidering its earlier decision, a three-judge appeals court panel ruled unanimously in March that Edwards' lawsuit against the state could proceed and said South Carolina could not strip Planned Parenthood of state Medicaid funds. Could.
“This case is and always has been about whether Congress provided Medicaid beneficiaries with an individually enforceable right to freely choose their health care provider. Preserving access to Planned Parenthood and other providers “To do this means preserving an affordable option and quality care for countless mothers and infants in South Carolina,” Judge Harvey Wilkinson. wrote For the fourth circuit panel.
South Carolina officials asked the Supreme Court to review that decision, marking the third time the case has come before the justices. The justices agreed to consider the question of whether “any qualified provider provision of the Medicaid Act expressly provides a Medicaid beneficiary a private right to choose a specific provider.”
South Carolina is one of more than two dozen passed laws restricting access Abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court's June 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade. In South Carolina, abortion is illegal after six weeks of pregnancy with a few exceptions.
Several states, including Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi, and Texas, have also enacted laws preventing Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funding.