Supreme Court Upholds South Carolina’s Right to Defund Planned Parenthood

I’m not surprised and yet grateful for the Supreme Court’s Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic decision today, which upheld South Carolina’s right to defund Planned Parenthood in state Medicaid programs. We can and must do better for vulnerable women and their unborn babies — whom Planned Parenthood targets. PP itself, in recent years, has had to acknowledge its eugenicist roots, even though it has whitewashed founder Margaret Sanger’s name off one of its buildings, in Manhattan. This Saturday, there will be “defund Planned Parenthood” rallies throughout the country, organized by Live Action.

The Court ruling offers yet another great occasion to encourage the Senate to eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood through the “big, beautiful bill” (ridiculous nickname aside). Mary FioRito, attorney and Cardinal George Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, comments to me over e-mail:

Today’s Medina decision is an important step forward in severing the abortion industry from the tax dollars that have propped it up for decades. The vast majority of Americans agree that taxpayer dollars should not be spent on elective abortions — even those who otherwise support legal abortion oppose taxpayer funding of it. Medicaid dollars should go towards community health clinics that provide life-affirming care for families, not elective abortion.

O. Carter Snead, Charles E. Rice Professor of Law at Notre Dame, and author of What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics, also wrote to me in an e-mail:

It’s hugely important insofar as it removes a key obstacle from states who want to provide care for vulnerable women, children, and families under Medicaid without spending taxpayer dollars to support organizations that provide abortions.

By the way, we talked about his book, once upon a time:

Here’s the 6–3 Medina decision.

Here’s the South Carolina governor:

Here’s former Texas Planned Parenthood Director Abby Johnson:

Abby, by the way, commented on the three-year anniversary of Dobbs, which ended Roe, on National Review Online earlier this week, here.