The Supreme Court refused to hear a case today that put Planned Parenthood funding front and center

POLITICO – The Supreme Court on Monday declined to review whether states can block Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers from their Medicaid programs, passing on a pair of cases that would have served as the first major abortion test for the court’s new conservative majority. Chief Justice John Roberts and the newest justice, Brett Kavanaugh, joined the court’s four liberal jurists in turning away a pair of petitions from Kansas and Louisiana seeking the ban on abortion providers.

Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, dissented. It takes four justices to agree to accept a case.





First of all, this case isn’t specifically about abortion, per se, as the Medicaid programs in question don’t cover abortion. It is about the ‘other services’ PP provides.

But it is about the company, which obviously does provide abortions, and states’ attempts to defund the company because of their horrid abortion practices.

As Politico points out, it takes four justices to AGREE to accept a case. Meaning neither Kavanaugh nor Roberts thought the court should hear this case. Since they don’t have to explain their disagreement, we don’t exactly know why they chose not to accept it.







What we do know is what Justice Thomas wrote in dissent of the court not taking the case:

Thomas, suggesting most of his colleagues were fearful of taking up a challenge involving Planned Parenthood, asserted the cases weren’t about abortion rights but whether individuals have a right to challenge a state’s decision to cut a particular provider from its Medicaid program.

“Some tenuous connection to a politically fraught issue does not justify abdicating our judicial duty,” Thomas wrote. “If anything, neutrally applying the law is all the more important when political issues are in the background.”



The Supreme Court’s action Monday allows the split decisions to stand in different federal circuits. Thomas, in his dissent, wrote that the Supreme Court should have taken the cases to resolve conflicting findings from lower courts.

“Because of this Court’s inaction, patients in different States — even patients with the same providers — have different rights to challenge their State’s provider decisions,” Thomas wrote.





Thomas makes a great point, asking how the Supreme Court can ignore a question that has lower courts divided. Even taking away the fact that this is about Planned Parenthood, you’d think the high court would settle the dispute in the courts one way or the other.

He also argues that allowing this litigation in some states will put heavy burdens on these states and may prevent them from doing what’s best for the public.

About this he says in his dissent below:

So what explains the Court’s refusal to do its job here? I suspect it has something to do with the fact that some respondents in these cases are named “Planned Parenthood.” That makes the Court’s decision particularly troubling, as the question presented has nothing to do with abortion.

Here’s more from Thomas if you want to read it. His full dissent begins on page 9 of the PDF below: