The US Supreme Court has given South Carolina a green light to block funding for Planned Parenthood.
According to Reuters, in a major blow to Planned Parenthood, the top US court stopped it from suing the red state for halting its Medicaid funding, citing that it facilitates abortions.
The court overturned a lower court ruling that stopped the Republican-led state from excluding Planned Parenthood South Atlantic from Medicaid only because it provides abortions.
The case was about whether the organisation receiving Medicaid had a right to sue to get medical assistance from any qualified provider.
Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, in the 6-3 ruling, wrote, “New rights for some mean new duties for others. And private enforcement actions, meritorious or not, can force governments to direct money away from public services and spend it instead on litigation.”
“The job of resolving how best to weigh those competing costs and benefits belongs to the people’s elected representatives, not unelected judges charged with applying the law as they find it," he added.
Meanwhile, the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Alexis McGill Johnson, criticised the decision, saying that the Supreme Court has once again “sided” with politicians who believed that they know better than the court.
She asserted that the lawmakers want to defund Planned Parenthood "as part of their long-term goal to shut down Planned Parenthood and ban abortion nationwide.”
Notably, abortion for as early as six weeks of pregnancy is banned in South Carolina.
