{"id":25186,"date":"2025-04-02T17:52:16","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T17:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=25186"},"modified":"2025-04-02T18:28:47","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T18:28:47","slug":"justices-weigh-challenge-to-south-carolinas-bid-to-defund-planned-parenthood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=25186","title":{"rendered":"Justices Weigh Challenge to South Carolina\u2019s Bid to Defund Planned Parenthood"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

The court will decide whether Medicaid beneficiaries may sue to receive services under a law that lets them choose any qualified provider.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

The Supreme Court heard arguments on Wednesday in a case arising from South Carolina\u2019s attempt to deny funding to Planned Parenthood. But the question the justices grappled with was a relatively narrow one, focused on whether individuals may sue the state to obtain medical services from Planned Parenthood unrelated to abortion.<\/p>\n

In 2018, Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina, a Republican, ordered state officials to deny Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood, saying that \u201cpayment of taxpayer funds to abortion clinics, for any purpose, results in the subsidy of abortion and the denial of the right to life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Medicaid gives federal money to states to provide medical care for poor people, but it sets some conditions. One is that eligible participants may receive assistance from any provider qualified to perform the required services.<\/p>\n

Abortions are banned in South Carolina after six weeks of pregnancy, and, even then, federal law prohibits the use of Medicaid funding except in life-threatening circumstances or in cases of rape or incest. But Planned Parenthood clinics in Charleston and Columbia provide services unrelated to abortion, including counseling, physical exams, contraception and screenings for cancer and sexually transmitted infections.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Planned Parenthood and a patient who sought contraception sued under a federal civil rights law, and a federal trial judge blocked the South Carolina directive, saying that it ran afoul of Medicaid\u2019s requirement that patients may choose any qualified provider.<\/p>\n

The litigation that followed was convoluted and circuitous, focusing largely on whether that provision created a right that individuals could enforce by filing lawsuits. The Supreme Court has said that federal laws like Medicaid, which give money to states but only if they accept certain conditions, must \u201cunambiguously confer individual federal rights\u201d to give affected individuals the right to sue.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.<\/p>\n

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into<\/a>\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe<\/a>\u00a0for all of The Times.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.<\/p>\n

Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The court will decide whether Medicaid beneficiaries may sue to receive services under a law that lets them choose any qualified provider.The Supreme Court heard arguments on Wednesday in a case arising from South Carolina\u2019s attempt to deny funding to Planned Parenthood. But the question the justices grappled with was a relatively narrow one, focused on whether individuals may sue the state to obtain medical services from Planned Parenthood unrelated to abortion.In 2018, Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina, a Republican, ordered state officials to deny Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood, saying that \u201cpayment of taxpayer funds to abortion clinics, for any purpose, results in the subsidy of abortion and the denial of the right to life.\u201dMedicaid gives federal money to states to provide medical care for poor people, but it sets some conditions. One is that eligible participants may receive assistance from any provider qualified to perform the required services.Abortions are banned in South Carolina after six weeks of pregnancy, and, even then, federal law prohibits the use of Medicaid funding except in life-threatening circumstances or in cases of rape or incest. But Planned Parenthood clinics in Charleston and Columbia provide services unrelated to abortion, including counseling, physical exams, contraception and screenings for cancer and sexually transmitted infections.Planned Parenthood and a patient who sought contraception sued under a federal civil rights law, and a federal trial judge blocked the South Carolina directive, saying that it ran afoul of Medicaid\u2019s requirement that patients may choose any qualified provider.The litigation that followed was convoluted and circuitous, focusing largely on whether that provision created a right that individuals could enforce by filing lawsuits. The Supreme Court has said that federal laws like Medicaid, which give money to states but only if they accept certain conditions, must \u201cunambiguously confer individual federal rights\u201d to give affected individuals the right to sue.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25188,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25186"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25189,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25186\/revisions\/25189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}