The Supreme Court on Wednesday is set to hear arguments in Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit over South Carolina’s efforts to bar clinics that offer abortion services from the state’s Medicaid program, Axios reported.
"You've got roughly 200 publicly funded healthcare clinics in South Carolina that provide a broad range of high-quality healthcare services, including family-planning services," John Bursch, an attorney with the conservative legal group the Alliance Defending Freedom who will argue on behalf of South Carolina before the Supreme Court, told CBS News in an interview.
"South Carolina is entitled to decide that there are better options, and that's exactly what it's done," he added.
Planned Parenthood and its supporters argue that the case is about more than just abortion access and could affect the rights of Medicaid enrollees to obtain care.
"This case is not about abortion. This case is about general healthcare," Katherine Farris, the chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, told The Independent.
"If Medicaid enrollees can't enforce the rights that the Medicaid statute creates, then those rights, you know, they're not real rights," Elizabeth Taylor, the executive director of the National Health Law Program who wrote a brief to support Planned Parenthood, told Axios.
"It is essential to the effective working of the Medicaid program ... that when they aren't getting what they're legally entitled to, they can go into court and enforce those rights," she added.
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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