In a decisive blow to Planned Parenthood’s legal crusade, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6–3 on Thursday that the organization cannot sue South Carolina over its exclusion from the state’s Medicaid program—delivering a victory years in the making for pro-life leaders.

At the heart of the ruling is South Carolina’s 2018 move to disqualify Planned Parenthood from receiving taxpayer funds through Medicaid. The abortion giant argued that the decision violated the “free-choice-of-provider” provision of federal Medicaid law, but the Court rejected that claim—denying that Planned Parenthood even had standing to sue in the first place.

Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch emphasized that policy decisions over healthcare funding belong to Congress, not to activist litigators or the courts. “Balancing those costs and benefits poses a question of public policy that, under our system of government, only Congress may answer,” Gorsuch stated. He also noted that endless lawsuits from “unqualified providers” threaten to divert resources away from those Medicaid is meant to serve.

The decision marks a landmark shift in the national debate over abortion funding, opening the door for other red states to follow South Carolina’s lead by cutting off Planned Parenthood from their Medicaid programs. For years, the organization has relied on legal challenges to maintain its funding stream. Thursday’s ruling ends that strategy—at least at the federal level.

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster celebrated the ruling as a long-overdue win for state sovereignty and the pro-life movement. “The U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed our right to exclude abortion providers from receiving taxpayer dollars,” he said. “Seven years ago, we took a stand to protect the sanctity of life—and today, we are finally victorious.”

Predictably, the left is fuming. In her dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson—joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan—warned that the ruling “is likely to result in tangible harm to real people.” Jackson argued that Medicaid recipients will now be unable to challenge a state’s decision about who can provide their healthcare.

But critics say that line of thinking flips the law on its head. Katie Daniel of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America applauded the Court’s restraint and blasted Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit as a form of taxpayer-funded “lawfare.” “By rejecting Planned Parenthood’s lawfare, the Court not only saves countless unborn babies from a violent death and their mothers from dangerously shoddy ‘care,’ it also protects Medicaid from exposure to thousands of lawsuits,” she said.

The Biden administration had quietly supported Planned Parenthood’s position, though it avoided taking the fight to the Supreme Court. Instead, it relied on legacy media and pressure campaigns to back the narrative that disqualifying abortion providers is somehow a civil rights violation.

That argument just collapsed—and it could spell trouble for Democrats in swing states. By affirming that states can set their own rules for Medicaid providers, the Supreme Court’s ruling not only delivers a blow to Planned Parenthood but empowers conservative governors across the country.

Expect a wave of new legislation as pro-life states test their authority to redirect taxpayer dollars to providers that don’t offer abortions. With this ruling, they now have the legal firepower to make those policies stick—and Planned Parenthood’s grip on public funds may never recover.