Washington – There are only two Planned Parenthood clinics in South Carolina, but every year they take hundreds of low -income patients who need things such as contraception, cancer exams and pregnancy tests.
The organization has long been at the center of the abortion debate, but its clinics in the United States also provide a range of other services. In South Carolina, patients with Medicaid often seek Planned Parenthood because they often have difficulty finding a doctor who accepts insurance with public funds.
A case that is coming before the Supreme Court of South Carolina on Wednesday could change that option. This is because the state’s republican governor, Henry McMaster, is pressing to block public public health care dollars to go to Planned Parenthood.
Federal law already prohibits Medicaid money from paying for abortions, with very limited exceptions, and South Carolina now prohibits almost all abortions around six weeks after conception.
“This case is not about abortion. This case is about general medical care,” said Katherine Farris, medical director of Planned Parenthood Atlantic South.
Even so, republican leaders in states led by conservatives have long said that no public medical care dollars must go to an organization that provides abortions, and states should be able to direct that money as choose. Some states have already reduced Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood and more could follow if South Carolina prevails.
“People in this state do not want their tax money to go to that organization,” McMaster said.
The Trump administration joins South Carolina for the arguments on Wednesday, which are being developed in the context of a broader thrust for abortion opponents Planned Parenthood.
Meanwhile, medical care defenders say that the effects of the case transcend abortion. The legal question in their center is whether Medicaid patients can sue for their legal right to choose their own qualified supplier.
The American Cancer Society and other public health groups say in judicial documents that demands are the only real way in which patients can affirm those rights. Losing the ability to go to court would damage your access to attention, especially in rural areas.
“If no one can enforce the statute or no one is willing to enforce the statute at the federal level, then it is a right only on paper,” said Julian Polaris, a lawyer who regularly advises state programs of Medicaid and medical care providers. The states could also move to restrict access to treatments such as the attention affirmed by gender if the Court rises with South Carolina, he said.
One in five Americans of reproductive age is now registered in the Medicaid program, said Heidi Allen, an associated professor at Columbia University. This means that finding suppliers that can offer quality family planning services, a requirement for Medicaid, is crucial to meet the needs of these patients.
“It is worrying that states would eliminate a place of attention for politically motivated reasons,” said Allen.
The case dates back to 2018, before the Supreme Court revoked national law to abortion, when McMaster moved for the first time to reduce Planned Parenthood funds in a campaign promise. He signed an executive order that eliminates Planned Parenthood from a list of suppliers for things such as contraceptives and tests of sexually transmitted diseases.
“There are many good organizations that provide advice, advice and maternal health care and we need more of those,” McMaster said last week.
His order was blocked in court, but since then the judges have failed in favor of similar movements in Texas and Missouri, said John Bursch, lawyer of the alliance of the conservative group that defends freedom.
“At the highest level, this case is if states have the flexibility of directing Medicaid money to better benefit women and low -income families,” he said.
He acknowledged that a victory for South Carolina could reduce other Medicaid demands, but suggested that this could be good for the program in general because it would mean less money for legal fees. There is also a process of administrative appeals available, he said.
“No one is losing access to medical care clinics,” Busch said. If the State is allowed to cut Planned Parenthood, Medicaid patients could go to one of the other 200 medical care clinics with public funds in the state, he said.
In South Carolina, $ 90,000 in Medicaid funds go to Planned Parenthood every year, a small fraction of a percentage point of the total medical expense of the State.
The majority of counties in the State have already been federally appointed as they have very few primary care providers, said Amalia Luxardo, CEO of the Rights Network and Empowerment of women based in South Carolina. Fourteen of state counties do not have doctors from Ob-ginn and five other counties, he said only one, he said, which means that many women already have to travel longer distances to find the proper supplier.
Planned Parenthood has flexible hours and can get scheduled appointments quickly, factors that bring patients from all over the state, he said.
“We are already in a medical care crisis,” said Luxardo, whose group has submitted judicial reports that support Planned Parenthood. “And when decisions like these negatively affect our constituents, the crisis will only increase.”
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Associated Press writers Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, SC and Kimberlee Kruesi in Nashville, Tennessee, contributed to this report.
