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'People Will Die,' Warn Progressives as Supreme Court Lets States Defund Planned Parenthood
"This is a systematic decimation of access to reproductive healthcare and a signifier of what else is likely to come," warned one critic.
Jun 26, 2025
In its latest blow to reproductive healthcare in the United States, the Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority on Thursday blocked Planned Parenthood and one of its patients from suing South Carolina over its defunding of the medical provider because it performs abortions—a decision that critics say will cost lives as more Republican-controlled states follow suit.
At question in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic was whether Medicaid beneficiaries can sue in order to secure healthcare services under a law that allows patients to choose any qualified provider. The high court ruled 6-3 that they cannot, with liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting.
"The decision whether to let private plaintiffs enforce a new statutory right poses delicate questions of public policy. New rights for some mean new duties for others," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority. "And private enforcement actions, meritorious or not, can force governments to direct money away from public services and spend it instead on litigation."
"The job of resolving how best to weigh those competing costs and benefits belongs to the people's elected representatives, not
unelected judges charged with applying the law as they find it," Gorsuch added.
Concurring with the majority, far-right Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the ruling invites further scrutiny of Section 1983, the federal law empowering individuals to sue state and local government officials for violating their constitutional rights.
And, predictably, in Medina, Justice Thomas isn't content to axe Planned Parenthood from Medicaid. He would go further ... "to reexamine more broadly this Court’s §1983 jurisprudence . . . ."This is an invitation to undermine a major foundation of civil rights litigation.
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— Melissa Murray (@profmmurray.bsky.social) June 26, 2025 at 7:17 AM
In a furious dissent, Jackson wrote that "the court's decision today is not the first to so weaken the landmark civil rights protections that Congress enacted during the Reconstruction era."
"That means we do have a sense of what comes next: As with those past rulings, today's decision is likely to result in tangible harm to real people," she continued. "At a minimum, it will deprive Medicaid recipients in South Carolina of their only meaningful way of enforcing a right that Congress has expressly granted to them."
"And, more concretely, it will strip those South Carolinians—and countless other Medicaid recipients around the country—of a deeply personal freedom: the 'ability to decide who treats us at our most vulnerable,'" Jackson added. "The court today disregards Congress' express desire to prevent that very outcome."
More than 70 million Americans rely upon Medicaid, the federal government's primary health insurance program for lower-income people. The program is facing the prospect of major cuts under a Republican budget proposal that critics warn could cause millions of people to lose their healthcare coverage in service to a massive tax break backed by President Donald Trump that would disproportionately benefit the rich and corporations.
According to Planned Parenthood Federation of America president and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson, "currently, 20% of South Carolinians—over 1 million—receive healthcare services through the Medicaid program, and approximately 5% of those recipients sought sexual and reproductive health care services at Planned Parenthood South Atlantic (PPSAT) so far this year."
Responding to Thursday's ruling, McGill Johnson said that "the consequences are not theoretical in South Carolina or other states with hostile legislatures."
"Patients need access to birth control, cancer screenings, STI testing and treatment, and more. And right now, lawmakers in Congress are trying to 'defund' Planned Parenthood as part of their long-term goal to shut down Planned Parenthood and ban abortion nationwide," she added. "Make no mistake, the attacks are ongoing and Planned Parenthood will continue to do everything possible to show up in communities across the country and provide care."
Under tremendous Republican-led pressure, Planned Parenthood has closed or announced plans to close at least 20 locations across seven states since the beginning of the year.
"Today's decision is a grave injustice that strikes at the very bedrock of American freedom and promises to send South Carolina deeper into a healthcare crisis," PPSAT president and CEO Paige Johnson said following Thursday's decision. "Twice, justices of this court denied to even hear this case because [South Carolina Gov. Henry] McMaster's intent is clear: weaponize anti-abortion sentiment to deprive communities with low incomes of basic healthcare."
"Planned Parenthood South Atlantic will continue to operate and offer care in South Carolina, including for people enrolled in Medicaid," Johnson added. "To our patients, we will do everything in our power to ensure you can get the care you need at low or no cost to you. Know that we are still here for you, and we will never stop fighting for you to reclaim the rights and dignity you deserve."
Destiny Lopez, co-president and CEO of the Guttmacher Institute, called the ruling "a grave injustice."
Lopez continued:
At a time when healthcare is already costly and difficult to access, stripping patients of their right to high-quality, affordable healthcare at the provider of their choosing is a dangerous violation of bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom.
Specifically targeting Planned Parenthood has long been a strategy of the anti-abortion movement. Planned Parenthood health centers are an irreplaceable part of the U.S. healthcare system; Guttmacher data show that among the 4.7 million contraceptive patients served by publicly supported clinics in 2020, one in three received care from Planned Parenthood.
"In the face of attempts to 'defund' Planned Parenthood and attack Medicaid, Title X, and other pillars of reproductive healthcare, the court's actions cannot be considered in a vacuum," Lopez asserted. "This is a systematic decimation of access to reproductive healthcare and a signifier of what else is likely to come. Everyone deserves choice in their healthcare provider and access to the family planning they need."
Progressive groups and individuals also condemned Thursday's ruling, with the Freedom From Religion Foundation lamenting that "Christian nationalists win, women and low-income patients lose."
"This isn't justice," FFRF added. "It's religious favoritism at the highest level."
Planned Parenthood provides affordable:➡ Cancer screening➡ STD testing and treatment➡ Prenatal supportToday's decision from SCOTUS to allow SC to remove Planned Parenthood from Medicaid means that people will be sicker and people will die.www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
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— Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (@jayapal.house.gov) June 26, 2025 at 7:34 AM
Meagan Hatcher-Mays, senior adviser at United for Democracy, said in a statement that "millions of Medicaid patients across the country rely on Planned Parenthood health centers for their primary and reproductive care, and people who face systemic racism and discrimination—Black, Latino, and Indigenous communities, as well as LGBTQ+ people and women—are more likely to be covered by Medicaid."
"It's ironic that the MAGA justices issued this ruling today, almost three years to the day that they overturned Roe v. Wade and threw abortion access into chaos across the country," Hatcher-Mays added. "Today's ruling is a further attack on healthcare, bodily autonomy, and our freedoms. This ruling clearly harms communities in South Carolina, and it's a matter of time before we see that harm expand further into the country."
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Alito and Thomas Urged to Recuse From Key Case Over 'Cozy Ties' to Right-Wing Kingpin
"Americans deserve a legal system that isn't influenced by billionaires and special interest backers pushing an agenda at the expense of working families," said a watchdog group leader.
Mar 19, 2025
Ahead of U.S. Supreme Court arguments next week, a watchdog group asserted Wednesday that right-wing Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas must recuse themselves from a case "whose outcome could have sweeping consequences," citing "significant conflicts of interest" due to their relationships with "conservative kingpin Leonard Leo."
In Federal Communications Commission v. Consumers' Research, a right-wing group is challenging the constitutionality of the FCC's Universal Service Fund program.
Vox's Ian Millhiser reported Wednesday that "if the Supreme Court accepts an argument raised by a federal appeals court, which struck down the federal program, it would bring about one of the biggest judicial power grabs in American history, and hobble the government's ability to do, well, pretty much anything."
In the new report about Alito and Thomas, the watchdog Accountable.US issued a similar warning about the case's potential impacts: "Effectively defunct for almost a century, the nondelegation doctrine prohibits Congress from passing off its legislative power to federal agencies... Reviving the doctrine would cripple agencies' ability to govern consumer safeguards, social security, Medicare, and more during a time when the Trump administration has begun to slash federal agencies."
"Now before the high court, the case presents an obvious conflict of interest for many of the justices who are personally tied to (and in some cases, friends of) the conservative activist Leonard Leo, who is closely connected to Consumers' Research," the analysis explains, pointing to reporting that Leo is the group's "main backer."
While "all six conservatives now sitting on the Supreme Court can credit Leo with helping to shepherd their confirmations," the watchdog's report states, the right-wing legal activist is "close personal friends" with Alito and Thomas.
According to the report:
- Leo has known Justice Thomas since the early 1990s when Leo was clerking in D.C. Since then, Leo has traveled with Thomas and invited him to his personal residence in Maine. The justice is also the godfather to one of Leo's daughters. Justice Thomas' wife, Ginni, has previously called Leo her "hero" and "mentor." Over the past 15 years, Leo and Ginni have worked together on several projects, operationalizing the outside game of conservative dark money and politics.
- Leo has also traveled with Justice Alito, most notably to Alaska on a private fishing trip (which Justice Alito did not disclose at the time). Leo's Federalist Society has also sponsored numerous trips overseas for Alito, some of them attended by Leo himself.
"Americans deserve a legal system that isn't influenced by billionaires and special interest backers pushing an agenda at the expense of working families. Justices Thomas and Alito's cozy ties to Leonard Leo and thereby Consumers' Research fly straight in the face of that, and present a clear conflict of interest impeding their ability to rule impartially on the case," said Accountable.US president Caroline Ciccone in a statement.
"Public trust in the Supreme Court is already at an all-time low because of misguided conduct by justices–this case threatens to degrade it further," Ciccone continued. "The Supreme Court simply cannot be trusted to defend the Constitution if it doesn't adopt an obligatory, enforceable code of conduct that cleans up the impropriety that's existed on the court for years. Thomas and Alito must recuse themselves and restore a semblance of integrity to the highest court."
In addition to releasing the report, Accountable.US and two other groups, Take Back the Court and United for Democracy, argued for Alito and Thomas' recusal in a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts—who on Tuesday publicly condemned right-wing attacks on the federal judiciary.
"The Supreme Court has been engulfed by corruption scandals, many of which centering around the right-wing justices' overly friendly relationships with powerful billionaires and special interests," United for Democracy senior adviser Meagan Hatcher-Mays said Wednesday. "At the same time that Justices Thomas and Alito were accepting lavish gifts and trips from billionaires, they were hearing cases with those same billionaires' legal interests at stake."
"It's impossible for the American public to trust in Supreme Court rulings when this kind of glad-handing is taking place," she added. "The appearance of impropriety is clear in FCC v. Consumers' Research given Leonard Leo's long-time friendship with Justices Thomas and Alito and his financial entanglements with Consumers’ Research. Justices Thomas and Alito must recuse themselves immediately."
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Progressive Coalition Launches Campaign to Demand Congress Act on SCOTUS Reform
"Unless we stand together, the Supreme Court is only going to further erode our rights, our democracy, and the quality of our lives and those of our loved ones."
Jun 12, 2023
Accusing the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority of "trampling long-standing judicial norms and legal precedent," a coalition of more than 100 advocacy groups on Monday announced a new campaign aimed at pushing Congress to rein in the "extreme" court.
Made up of "grassroots organizations, labor unions, and advocates for reproductive rights, gun violence prevention, the environment, workers' rights, and more," United for Democracy "kicks off with a $1 million ad campaign and multistate initiative to raise awareness about the court's impact on Americans' lives and freedoms," the coalition said in a statement.
Starting in Arizona, Montana, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin and "tapping into the growing attention paid to battleground states as we approach 2024," United for Democracy aims to "build pressure on Congress to act" by regulating the court's ethical and administrative aspects—and even by increasing the number of its justices.
"United for Democracy is launching with a clear message in Washington, D.C. and across the country: This extreme Supreme Court is hurting workers, families, communities, and our country," Stasha Rhodes, the campaign's director, said in a statement. "We are standing together to organize, fight back, and demand change."
"We are launching United for Democracy to make sure people understand what's at stake and how they can demand action from Congress."
"This Supreme Court has grabbed unprecedented power, rejected basic ethics, transparency, and accountability—and is implementing an extreme agenda that the American people have continuously rejected," Rhodes added. "We are launching United for Democracy to make sure people understand what's at stake and how they can demand action from Congress."
\u201cThe Alliance for Justice is proud to join the United for Democracy coalition today. For the sake of our rights, our livelihoods, our safety, and the future of our democracy:\n\nCongress must rein in an extreme Supreme Court.\u201d— Alliance for Justice (@Alliance for Justice) 1686576784
Bianka Emerson, president of coalition member Colorado Black Women for Political Action, said: "Our democracy is under attack. So many in this country worked and fought to provide for equality for all and we have seen in the past few years, the clock turning back on this very progress."
"Progress for women's health, voting rights, and even public safety have all been compromised," she added. "We must work to rein in the Supreme Court in order to secure a true democracy for generations to come."
Alliance for Justice president Rakim Brooks warned that "unless we stand together, the Supreme Court is only going to further erode our rights, our democracy, and the quality of our lives and those of our loved ones."
"America is supposed to be a country where the rule of law governs, not ideology, yet in recent years we've watched this court trample decades of precedent and eviscerate the rule of law to serve an ideological agenda," Brooks continued. "If that weren't bad enough, we now know Justice [Clarence] Thomas has been profiting for his profane use of public office."
Thomas is under fire for failing to report lavish gifts he and his relatives received from billionaire Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow.
"Enough is enough; it's time we defend our court and take it back from those who would undermine its legitimacy and vital role in our democracy."
"Enough is enough; it's time we defend our court and take it back from those who would undermine its legitimacy and vital role in our democracy," Brooks added.
Accountable.US president Kyle Herrig said his group joined United for Democracy because "the growing Supreme Court corruption crisis has highlighted how fundamentally broken our court is and how urgently it needs reform."
"With United for Democracy, Accountable.US is proud to join forces with key partners to shine a light on the corrupt court and demand that it stop putting special interests over everyday Americans," Herrig added.
\u201c\ud83d\udea8The Supreme Court's corruption is costing the court America's trust\ud83d\udea8\n\nWe joined @WeAreUFD to highlight the impacts of #SCOTUS on our families, freedoms, and democracy. \u2b07\ufe0f \u2b07\ufe0f \u2b07\ufe0f\n\nhttps://t.co/fyIQTQeQat\u201d— Accountable.US (@Accountable.US) 1686587526
Some coalition members, including the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD), are calling for an expanded Supreme Court.
"CPD has fought hard to hold U.S. Supreme Court justices accountable and expand the high court to stop a conservative majority that serves the interests of the powerful few," the group said. "We're proud to join the United for Democracy coalition at a moment when justices have gotten away with egregious ethical breaches, strong-armed minority and dissenting voices, and ignored the will of the people."
United for Democracy members include the American Federation of Teachers, Planned Parenthood, League of Conservation Voters, Dēmos, Giffords, National Education Association, Fair Fight, SEIU, NARAL, MoveOn, March for Our Lives, Black Voters Matter Fund, Alliance for Justice, LUCHA, UltraViolet, and many others.
The campaign is also supported by U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a leading congressional proponent of Supreme Court ethics reforms.
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