Planned Parenthood, the massive, 108-year-old network of women’s and reproductive health clinics that operates almost 600 health centers across the United States, may not survive the Trump administration. Long a hated symbol on the right, and unable to summon enthusiastic support from the left, the medical network has nevertheless remained a symbolic and material cornerstone of women’s equality, serving millions of patients – many of them indigent or low-income – each year, and housing one of the biggest feminist and pro-choice lobbying and litigation shops in America, in addition to being one of the nation’s largest healthcare providers.
Since returning to power in January, the Trump administration has made repeated cuts targeting Planned Parenthood’s clinics, excluding the group from the vast Title X family planning program, on the pretext of scurrilous claims that they have violated federal anti-discrimination law by adopting resolutions stressing their “commitment to Black communities” and by providing medical treatment to undocumented immigrants.
Now, the supreme court has struck another blow. Last week, the court ruled that patients cannot sue to challenge their states’ exclusion of Planned Parenthood from their Medicaid programs. The ruling threatens to transform the Medicaid program, giving states leeway to ban Medicaid reimbursements to any practice that provides politically disfavored medicine – notably abortion, but potentially also including contraception, IVF, gender-affirming care, or HIV treatment. The court functionally nullifies a clause in the bill that established the Medicaid program, which gives patients the right to seek care from “any qualified provider” of their choosing. Now, the choice of provider can be dramatically limited by the state on the basis of that provider’s political beliefs.
