States are now allowed to deny Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The high court’s six Republican-appointed justices formed the majority in a 6-3 decision, while the three Democrat-appointed justices dissented.

“The Medicaid Act requires only ‘substantia[l]’ compliance…suggesting focus on ‘aggregate’ compliance with federal obligations rather than rights ‘of any particular person,’” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the decision.

Though federal funding for abortion services is almost entirely banned, Planned Parenthood provides a wide range of women’s health services, including contraception and cancer screenings, and receives funding in part through Medicaid.

But in 2018, South Carolina’s Republican leadership attempted to cut all Medicaid funding for the health provider. A woman in South Carolina sued to block the law, saying it was her right under Medicaid to use any provider she desired, and she wanted to use Planned Parenthood.

The tangled court case eventually became about whether the woman even had the right to sue to choose her own doctor. Lower courts ruled she had the ability to sue, but the Supreme Court disagreed.

The justices found that while Medicaid law allows people choose their own provider, it does not make it a right enforceable in court.

“The Medicaid provision never uses ‘guarantee’ or ‘free choice’ — Congress omitted the very language claimed to create rights,” Gorsuch wrote.

Despite its complex details, Thursday’s ruling fundamentally allows states to deny Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood without fear of patient lawsuits. The Supreme Court refused to take up a similar case in 2018 but agreed in late 2024 to hear this one.

Planned Parenthood has long been a target for Republicans because it’s the nation’s highest profile abortion provider. President Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill,” currently being debated in the Senate, seeks to strip Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood nationwide.

With News Wire Services