Regarding South Carolina’s decision to defund Planned Parenthood, the U.S. Supreme Court has issued a significant ruling.

In a case titled Kerr v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, the Daily Caller reported that a majority 7-2 judgment by the nation’s highest court overturns a lower court ruling prohibiting the state from cutting funding to the abortion provider.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, blocked the state from terminating public funding for Planned Parenthood South Atlantic through Medicaid in March 2022 because Planned Parenthood offers abortion services.

“At the outset of this litigation, the district court issued a preliminary injunction preventing South Carolina from terminating Planned Parenthood’s provider agreement. We affirmed its decision then. South Carolina now returns to our court to appeal the district court’s subsequent permanent injunction,” Reagan-appointed U.S. Circuit Court Judge Harvie Wilkinson wrote for the majority, according to Courthouse News.

“In sum, we refuse to nullify Congress’s undeniable desire to extend a choice of medical providers to the less fortunate among us, individuals who experience the same medical problems as the more fortunate in society but who lack under their own means the same freedom to choose their healthcare provider,” he added.

Wilkinson and two other justices on the three-judge appeals panel sided with Medicaid patient Julie Edwards, ruling that South Carolina’s attempt to defund Planned Parenthood violated her right to choose her Medicaid provider.

Their decision upheld a permanent restraining order issued by Obama-appointed U.S. District Court Judge Mary Lewis.

The Daily Caller continues:

In 2018, Planned Parenthood South Atlantic and a Medicaid patient sued the state after South Carolina’s Republican governor, Henry McMaster, signed a bill removing the abortion provider from the state’s Medicaid program. The opponent in Planned Parenthood’s case is South Carolina’s director of Health and Human Services, Robert Kerr, because he manages the state’s Medicaid funds.

Planned Parenthood is challenging South Carolina’s six-week abortion ban, which was passed in May 2022, as the Supreme Court was preparing to overturn Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs v. Jackson Health case, allowing states to determine whether abortion should be legalized. Additionally, the organization has demanded court overcrowding and term limits for Supreme Court appointees.

In March, the Supreme Court reversed a lower court’s judgment that would have permitted a minor child to seek court approval for an abortion without informing her parents. Ketanji Brown Jackson, the new Supreme Court justice appointed by Biden, authored the sole dissent in the case.

“That lower court decision, issued last April by the St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, seems moot as a result of the Supreme Court’s momentous Dobbs ruling last June that overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the federal constitutional right to abortion,” Politico reported.

“The high court’s order … directed the appeals court to vacate the judgment in the case out of Missouri and declare it moot. The Supreme Court issued no opinion or detailed explanation for its action. However, Jackson penned a solo, four-page dissent arguing that the justices have become too liberal in granting requests from parties to nullify rulings issued by lower courts,” the outlet added.

More on this story via Conservative Brief:

“This case presents absolutely no ‘extraordinary’ circumstances,” Justice Jackson said. CONTINUE READING…