Supreme Court rejects Planned Parenthood funding case

The Supreme Court handed Planned Parenthood a legal victory Monday by refusing to take up two funding cases that lower courts decided in the abortion provider’s favor. Planned Parenthood successfully sued the states of Louisiana and Kansas for dropping the organization as a Medicaid provider after undercover videos from the Center for Medical Progress showed the abortion giant profiting from the sale of aborted baby body parts.

Other lower courts have in the past differed in their interpretations of states’ rights to select Medicaid providers and patients’ rights to challenge those decisions, which would normally lead the high court to take the case. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented from the court’s decision to refuse to hear this case, and in a rare opinion said states and patients need clarity on the issue. Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito joined his dissent, but the two other conservatives on the court, Chief Justice John Roberts and newly seated Justice Brett Kavanaugh did not.

“So what explains the court’s refusal to do its job here?” Thomas asked. “I suspect it has something to do with the fact that some respondents in these cases are named ‘Planned Parenthood.’ That makes the Court’s decision particularly troubling, as the question presented has nothing to do with abortion.” Although abortion practices were related to the state decisions to drop Planned Parenthood as a Medicaid provider, the case before the court was about who can challenge those decisions in all situations.