Black Community News News and Commentary for Christians
Planned Parenthood, the abortion behemoth that receives half a billion dollars from hard-working Americans every year, wants the largesse to continue. The death mill also deals in “gender care.”
Pro-life taxpayers in South Carolina want to shut down the gravy train. The director of the state’s Department of Health and Human Services blocked Planned Parenthood from receiving state tax money through Medicaid.
A woman named Julie Edwards and Planned Parenthood of South Atlantic sued the director over the blocked funds.
The Medicaid program is intended to help low-income individuals. The issue is whether the free-choice-of-provider provision of the Medicaid Act creates individual rights enforceable under federal law. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit said yes, it does. Planned Parenthood is considered a Medicaid provider.
South Carolina appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to protect the state’s right to starve Planned Parenthood of funding. The court agreed to hear the case. Alliance Defending Freedom represents the director.
“Taxpayer dollars should never be used to fund facilities that make a profit off abortion,” said John Bursch, ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of Appellate Advocacy. “State officials should be free to determine that Planned Parenthood and other entities that peddle abortion are not qualified to receive taxpayer funding through Medicaid. Congress did not create a right for Medicaid recipients to drag states into federal court to challenge those decisions. Nor did Congress intend for federal courts to second guess states’ decisions about which providers are qualified to receive Medicaid funding.”
Bursch added that the Medicaid Act is not a civil rights statue.
(There is no “civil right” to health care or to use an abortion facility as a provider that taxpayers must pay for.)
“To hold otherwise would encroach upon the executive and legislative branches’ prerogatives while increasing the cost to the states of providing medical care to their neediest citizens,” Bursch said.
