137 Members of Congress urge to let states defund abortion

May 1, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – More than a hundred members of Congress lent their signatures to an amicus brief this week calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that states may exclude Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funds.

In 2018, South Carolina Republican Gov. Henry McMaster issued an executive order disqualifying abortion facilities as Medicaid providers in the state. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic sued to block the order and received a preliminary injunction. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the injunction, leading the state to appeal the case to the nation’s highest court.

On Thursday, a group of 137 members of Congress, including 29 senators and 108 members of the House of Representatives, announced they had filed a brief siding with South Carolina.

“States have the right to deem their own Medicaid providers, and I stand with Governor McMaster’s lawful decision to ensure public funds don’t go to organizations that perform abortions, like Planned Parenthood,” said Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-South Carolina. “This is a battle on two fronts – a fight for the unborn and the conscience of taxpayers, and a fight for states’ authority to decide which providers qualify for funds. I’m hopeful the Supreme Court will hear this consequential case.”

“While it’s illegal to use Medicaid dollars to end a child’s life through abortion, the fact remains that a percentage of every Medicaid reimbursement for an approved service obviously goes towards the provider’s overhead,” added Rep. Ralph Norman, R-South Carolina. “This is not difficult to understand. For Planned Parenthood, that means Medicaid reimbursements for approved services would, in part, support the same overhead and broader operational costs that makes their life-ending abortion ‘services’ possible.”

Abortion advocates insist that tax dollars to abortion-involved facilities for other purposes don’t support abortions, but pro-lifers warn that such subsidies ultimately enable abortion groups to commit more abortions by freeing up money from their other revenue services. Duke University healthcare analyst Chris Conover estimated in 2015 that taxpayers ultimately cover almost 25 percent of all abortion costs.

Additionally, legitimate providers of women’s health services dwarf abortion-involved facilities across the country. As of 2015, federally qualified health centers and rural health clinics outnumbered Planned Parenthood facilities 268 to two in South Carolina. Today, Planned Parenthood still has just two locations in the Palmetto state.

It remains to be seen whether the Supreme Court will agree to hear the case.