HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (LifeSiteNews) — The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled 3-2 Monday that excluding elective abortions from state Medicaid coverage qualifies as sex-based discrimination, clearing the way for a lawsuit that could ultimately force taxpayers in the Keystone State to subsidize abortion.
The Pennsylvania Capital-Star reports that the case concerned a legal challenge brought by Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers against the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act’s prohibition on covering abortions through the state’s Medicaid program unless they are sought due to rape or incest. The ruling does not directly strike down that ban, but strengthens the plaintiffs’ odds of prevailing in their claims that the restriction violates Pennsylvania’s Equal Rights Amendment.
“The right to make healthcare decisions related to reproduction is a core important right encompassed by the enmeshed privacy interest protected by our Charter,” wrote Justice Christine Donohue in an opinion with which Justice David Wecht concurred. “Whether or not to give birth is likely the most personal and consequential decision imaginable in the human experience. Any self-determination is dependent on the right to make that decision.”
The third jurist in the majority, Kevin Dougherty, agreed on the Medicaid rule but maintained that more sweeping conclusions about abortion “rights” were premature, proper “only after the lower court has entertained it, with full notice to the bench, bar, and public.”
The case now goes back to a lower court to see whether the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services can establish a “compelling government interest” in excluding elective abortions from Medicaid coverage, and demonstrate that it used the “least restrictive means” available to advance it.
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Pennsylvania House Minority Leader Bryan Cutler, a Republican, blasted the ruling as an “activist” decision. “Pennsylvania’s Abortion Control Act is the gold standard for a middle ground and compromise over reproductive rights law. It was passed with bipartisan support and signed by a Democratic governor,” he said. “The court opening this law does nothing but further the divide over such a sensitive topic and will only lead to more mischief and bad faith where lawmakers and other elected officials should be leading with respect and understanding.”
The Commonwealth’s highest court also rebuked a lower court’s decision to allow state GOP lawmakers to intervene in the case to defend the law, which Cutler added “severely limited the Legislature’s voice in defending the laws they created through our constitutional process” and undermined its ability to “follow through on the legislative prerogative as the primary lawmaking body in our system of government.”
Fourteen states currently ban all or most abortions, with available data so far indicating that now-enforceable pro-life laws could effectively wipe out an estimated 200,000 abortions a year.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, abortion allies have pursued a variety of tactics to keep the abortion industry going, including easy access to abortion pills, enshrining “rights” to abortion in state constitutions, legal protection and financial support of interstate abortion travel, constructing new abortion facilities near borders shared by pro-life and pro-abortion states, and making liberal states sanctuaries for those who want to evade or violate the laws of more pro-life neighbors.
President Joe Biden has called on Congress to codify a “right” to abortion in federal law, which would not only restore but expand the Roe status quo by making it illegal for states to pass virtually any pro-life laws. The 2024 elections will determine whether Democrats retain the White House and keep or gain enough seats in Congress to make that happen.
In Pennsylvania, Democrat Gov. Josh Shapiro announced last August he was ending funding for a pregnancy support center that had contracted with the state to provide abortion alternatives for 30 years. State Democrats have also advocated making the state an abortion haven. Recently-released health data reveals that abortion complications have tripled in the Keystone State over the past five years, and that 2022 saw its highest number of abortions in a decade.