Supreme Court Wades Into South Carolina Fight Over Abortion, Funding to Planned Parenthood

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

55% : Medicaid patients, who are usually low-income, are among the people who go to Planned Parenthood to get access to a wide variety of health care services including critical cancer screenings, STD or STI testing and contraceptive access, they noted.
53% : And further, they pointed out that Planned Parenthood renders services to Medicaid recipients in South Carolina just like Edwards besides abortion.
53% : In his opinion siding with Edwards and Planned Parenthood, Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson reminded the state that the text of Medicaid's free-choice-of-provider provision made it plain: Medicaid recipients "may obtain such assistance from any institution, agency, community pharmacy, or person, qualified to perform the services required ... who undertakes to provide him such services.
51% : Edwards and Planned Parenthood South Atlantic contend that the Medicaid Act spells out clearly that patients on Medicaid have the right to choose a qualified health care provider.
50% : Planned Parenthood argued that the organization had to turn patients away as a result of McMaster's directive.
45% : The appellate court ruled that the prohibition on Planned Parenthood and Edwards directly impacted Planned Parenthood's existing legal agreement to provide services to Medicaid patients who show up at its doorstep.
33% : That year, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) ordered the state's health department to declare that institutions like Planned Parenthood, because they provide abortions, were no longer entitled to public funding through Medicaid.
30% : A protracted legal battle ensued when Planned Parenthood South Atlantic and patient Julie Edwards launched a lawsuit against the state, saying that existing federal law already bars Medicaid from paying, or reimbursing Planned Parenthood, for abortions (with some exceptions for rape and incest).

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