The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that Planned Parenthood and one of its patients may not sue South Carolina over its effort to deny funding to Planned Parenthood, reasoning that the relevant federal statute does not authorize such suits.

The vote was 6 to 3, with the court’s three liberal members in dissent.

In 2018, Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina, a Republican, ordered state officials to deny Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood, saying that “payment of taxpayer funds to abortion clinics, for any purpose, results in the subsidy of abortion and the denial of the right to life.”

Medicaid gives federal money to states to provide medical care for poor people, but it sets some conditions. One is that eligible participants may receive assistance from any provider qualified to perform the required services.

Abortions are banned in South Carolina after six weeks of pregnancy. Even then, federal law prohibits the use of Medicaid funding for abortion except in life-threatening circumstances or in cases of rape or incest. But Planned Parenthood clinics in Charleston and Columbia provide services unrelated to abortion, including counseling, physical exams, contraception and screenings for cancer and sexually transmitted infections.