Supreme Court's Medina ruling frees states to defund Planned Parenthood

The U.S. Supreme Court just delivered a major blow to the abortion industry with its ruling allowing states to defund abortion businesses like Planned Parenthood. In its 6-3 decision in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, the court confirmed that states get to decide who qualifies for Medicaid funding and can instead fund organizations that provide real, comprehensive health care.

For seven years, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) has defended his state’s policy against using tax dollars to fund abortion providers. This spring, my firm, Alliance Defending Freedom, represented South Carolina at the Supreme Court, receiving support from a broad coalition that included the U.S. government and 18 states. We argued that states should be free to direct Medicaid funds away from the abortion industry and toward real health care providers that offer women a wide range of services. The court’s ruling last week allows South Carolina to do just that.

Medicaid exists to help low-income Americans get the medical care they need. But abortion giants like Planned Parenthood focus instead on ending unborn life and distributing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to gender-confused children. That is not medical care.

They also don’t need public dollars, as they are already flush with cash. Planned Parenthood, for instance, received $3.2 billion from taxpayers over a five-year period. That’s on top of the hundreds of millions more it receives from private donors every year. And since Roe v. Wade was reversed in 2022, it’s had a fundraising boom, amassing over $2.5 billion in net assets.

Despite such revenues, Planned Parenthood has proved to be a poor steward of its resources. In February, The New York Times reported that over the last five years, Planned Parenthood’s “national office has distributed more than $899 million to affiliates to help them deliver care, but none of it went directly to medical services.”

Where did it go? According to The Times, much of it went to pro-abortion politicking and legal costs. Meanwhile, women’s health suffered. From 2022 to 2023, women’s preventative-care visits to Planned Parenthood fell by 31 percent — even as it performed a record-high 402,000 abortions. Since 2010, its cancer screening and prevention services have fallen by 71 percent, including a 72 percent drop for breast exams and 74 percent for pap tests.

The Times also revealed multiple examples of botched care, aging equipment, poorly trained staff, and a “chaotic” and “toxic” culture at Planned Parenthood. One former employee described its facilities as a “conveyor belt” where women were often given the wrong medications, taken to the wrong rooms, and prepped for the wrong procedures as employees “scrambled to move people in and out.”

Women deserve better than this, and taxpayers certainly shouldn’t have to fund it.

Beyond offering substandard care, Planned Parenthood also preys on children. It is now the nation’s second-largest provider of dangerous gender-transition drugs something it openly advertises — and it gives these drugs to minors. Not surprisingly, when South Carolina acted to shield children from these drugs over against Planned Parenthood’s political efforts, the abortion giant was “outraged.”

Consensus has turned sharply against these medical experiments on minors, both here and around the world. Seven in 10 Americans now oppose giving children gender-transition drugs. No state should be forced to fund groups that do so.

Most Americans also oppose using their tax dollars to support abortion. This Supreme Court ruling vindicates them. The Medicaid dollars that flowed to Planned Parenthood, while not directly funding abortions, freed up vast amounts of other funds that can then be used for abortions.

Because of this ruling, South Carolina taxpayers no longer have to line the pockets of Planned Parenthood, its substandard care for women or gender-transition drugs for children. They are instead free to support the nearly 200 clinics across their state that offer high-quality, comprehensive care to women. And other states are free to do the same.

Kristen Waggoner is CEO and president of Alliance Defending Freedom.