Leavitt: Glad for SCOTUS ruling on Planned Parenthood funding

Update, 3 p.m., 6/26/2025: At a news conference Thursday afternoon, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told WORLD’s Carolina Lumetta that the Trump administration welcomed the ruling. The Supreme Court upheld a state effort to withold Medicaid funding from a Planned Parenthood affiliate. Leavitt declined to say whether Trump would support a bill in Congress to defund Planned Parenthood at the federal level.

“The president has always maintained that Americans should not be forced to violate their conscience and their religious liberty by having their tax dollars fund abortions,” Leavitt said. “We’re glad the Supreme Court ruled on that side.”

Pro-life activists hope to build on the momentum of the ruling by lobbying other states to copy the South Carolina law. Melanie Israel, a Heritage Foundation fellow, said in a statement that more than 400,000 children died at Planned Parenthood facilities last year. The organization still receives roughly $800 million in government funding, mostly when low-income mothers use Medicaid to pay for abortions, she said. CatholicVote President Kelsey Reinhardt said, “No one should be forced to subsidize abortion.”

LiveAction called the ruling a major win for life. The pro-life organization is holding nationwide rallies on June 28 to support defunding Planned Parenthood.

Original story, 11 a.m., 6/26/2025: 

SCOTUS upholds state cut of Medicaid for Planned Parenthood

The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with South Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services in a case challenging the state’s refusal to pass on Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood. In the 6-3 majority opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that laws governing Medicaid do not give patients the right to sue when a state ends coverage for their preferred provider.

Gorsuch was joined in the majority opinion by Supreme Court Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, and Amy Coney Barrett. Meanwhile, Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented. In her dissenting opinion, Jackson said the ruling would weaken civil rights protections. The decision comes amid a growing national push to defund the abortion provider altogether.

In South Carolina, pro-life advocates cheered the court’s decision. Valerie Berry is a program director for the Christian pro-life organization A Moment of Hope based in Columbia. “We are jubilant that the Supreme Court has upheld the state's right to withhold funds from an organization which has made a lucrative business of murder under the guise of healthcare,” she said.

What is the background of the case? South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster in 2018 signed an executive order directing the state Department of Health and Human Services to remove abortion providers from the state’s list of Medicaid providers. Federal laws prohibit taxpayer dollars from directly funding abortions except in rare cases. But Gov. McMaster said the state’s order was intended to ensure public funds didn’t go to medical providers that perform abortions, regardless of what other services they offer. Planned Parenthood and Medicaid patient Julie Edwards sued the state, arguing the order infringed on Medicaid patients’ right to choose their healthcare providers. Edwards had received birth control at one of the state’s two Planned Parenthood facilities. A lower court last year blocked the governor’s order.

During oral arguments in April, a lawyer for the state argued that the Medicare and Medicaid Act does not allow patients to sue a state if they can’t use Medicaid at their preferred health clinic. Meanwhile, lawyers for the plaintiffs said the law’s provisions contained rights-creating language.

Do other states have similar practices? Arkansas ended its Medicaid provider agreement with Planned Parenthood in 2015 and a federal court upheld the move two years later. Other states including Missouri and Utah have also considered preventing taxpayer money from going to the organization. In 2015, then-Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley also terminated the state’s Medicaid contract with Planned Parenthood, but a federal judge blocked the action. The state then introduced the Plan First Program to provide free birth control and family planning for women and men in the state. Meanwhile, a federal appeals court in 2020 ruled that Texas and Louisiana could cut off Medicaid contracts with Planned Parenthood.

What do pro-life advocates in South Carolina say about the situation in the state? Berry was outside the Planned Parenthood facility in Columbia, South Carolina, in June 2022 when the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion. Berry works with A Moment of Hope, a Christian outreach organization, that provides counseling, support, and guidance for women who are considering abortion. Shortly before the Supreme Court’s decision in 2022, the ministry began operating a mobile medical clinic in a parking lot across from Planned Parenthood. Physicians in an RV offer free pregnancy tests and ultrasounds.

After Roe v. Wade was overturned and pro-life laws took effect across the country, South Carolina became an abortion destination, Berry said. In 2023 state lawmakers passed a law that would protect unborn babies after their heartbeat could be detected on an ultrasound, which typically occurs at six weeks of pregnancy. The state supreme court this spring unanimously ruled to keep the legislation in place. “Having that law in place has definitely helped bring more conviction,” Barry said. She and her team have already noticed fewer women coming to Planned Parenthood for abortions.

At the facility in Columbia, abortions are only performed two days a week. The remaining three days are reserved for other healthcare services like birth control, transgender medical interventions, and sexually transmitted disease testing. Despite offering other medical services, Barry says women have at least 16 other federally qualified healthcare centers within five miles of the abortion facility. “There's a free medical clinic. There are places that do free STI testing,” Barry said. “Almost everything that Planned Parenthood does is cheaper somewhere else, even if you're paying out of pocket.”

Without abortions, Barry and pro-life advocates hope that Planned Parenthood would close entirely. As abortion clinics shutter around the country and more women go online to obtain abortion pills, Barry said organizations are looking for new ways to reach women who may be considering ending their pregnancies. “It’s really a time for us to be creative as a pro-life movement,” she said.