(WHTM) — Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday has challenged the Commonwealth Court’s ruling last month that found the state’s ban on Medicaid coverage for abortions unconstitutional.
Longtime precedent held that abortions are legal but that tax dollars shouldn’t be paid for them, including through Medicaid. Multiple organizations, including Planned Parenthood Keystone and several women’s health facilities, sued the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services and its leadership, challenging that policy, and Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) didn’t defend it.
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The intermediate appellate court’s 4-3 opinion found that coverage exclusion in the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act “is unconstitutional, as it violates the Pennsylvania Constitution’s Equal Rights Amendment…and the Pennsylvania Constitution’s equal protection guarantees.”
But Sunday, a Republican, suggested the court erred in its ruling. He filed an appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Tuesday.
The attorney general did not take questions on the matter, but he released a short statement: “Per the Commonwealth Attorneys Act, the Office of Attorney General has a statutory obligation to defend the Commonwealth’s laws, and our notice of appeal fulfills that duty with regards to this statute.
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