Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), co-Chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, welcomed today’s United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruling in Medina v. Planned Parenthood, which opened the way for States like South Carolina to redirect Medicaid funding away from abortion giant Planned Parenthood based on its abortion activities and the narrow range of services it offers.
Smith said, “Today’s Supreme Court decision is a major victory for South Carolina, which rightly decided to make its federal and state Medicaid dollars available for genuine, life-affirming health care options instead of using them to fund abortion giant Planned Parenthood—an organization that has aborted over 10 million babies since 1970, an absolutely numbing loss of life.
"This decision frees other states to invest in real health care without fear that Planned Parenthood will misuse the court system to block a state’s right to administer its own Medicaid program and choose not to subsidize organizations that pay for elective abortion,” said Smith.
In 2018, South Carolina declared abortion clinics ineligible to receive Medicaid funding based on their abortion activities and the narrow range of services they offer. Following South Carolina’s determination, it was sued by Planned Parenthood, which kills over 1,000 unborn babies every day. Medicaid reimbursements are by far Planned Parenthood’s largest federal funding source, providing $1.5 billion in reimbursements nationwide over a three-year span.
While Planned Parenthood argued that the Medicaid statute gives Medicaid patients a right to receive services at Planned Parenthood, SCOTUS found that it “does not clearly and unambiguously confer individual rights enforceable under §1983.” It noted that provider challenges can be handled by state administrative processes, which Congress can strengthen as needed, but “balancing enforcement costs and benefits is a policy question for Congress, not courts.”
“Planned Parenthood—‘Child Abuse Incorporated’—goes to extraordinary lengths to ignore, trivialize and cover-up the battered baby-victim, but the truth is that the elective decapitations, dismemberments and starvation that Planned Parenthood commits and facilitates are not health care,” said Smith. “Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize the multibillion-dollar abortion industry through their Medicaid dollars.”
During consideration of this case, Rep. Smith joined four amicus briefs supporting South Carolina’s determination that Planned Parenthood does not qualify to receive Medicaid funding: a brief in April 2020, a brief in May 2022, a brief in July 2024, and a brief in February 2025.
“Earlier this year, I joined several of my colleagues—led by Members of the South Carolina delegation—in our most recent congressional amicus brief to the Supreme Court on this issue emphasizing that Congress gave states the power to decide which providers will be qualified to offer services through state Medicaid programs,” said Smith. “As the amicus brief stated, I believe today’s Supreme Court decision will decrease litigation, strengthen budgetary certainty, and promote innovation among the states—in addition to the critical result of allowing states to act to protect innocent unborn babies and their mothers from the harms of taxpayer-subsidized abortion.”
