{"id":171014,"date":"2026-04-20T18:09:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T18:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/171014\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T18:09:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T18:09:07","slug":"pa-court-overturns-ban-on-medicaid-for-abortion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/171014\/","title":{"rendered":"Pa. court overturns ban on Medicaid for abortion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania on Monday <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pacourts.us\/assets\/opinions\/Commonwealth\/out\/26MD19_4-20-26.pdf?cb=1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ruled<\/a> 4-3 that the state\u2019s ban on public funds for abortion care is unconstitutional.\n<\/p>\n<p>A subsection of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.palegis.us\/statutes\/consolidated\/view-statute?txtType=HTM&amp;ttl=18&amp;div=0&amp;chapter=32\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act of 1982<\/a> prevented the use of public funds from programs such as Medicaid on abortion, with limited exceptions. In 2019, a group of medical care providers filed a petition challenging the coverage exclusion.\n<\/p>\n<p>After a lengthy court battle, a split Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania found that the law violates the Equal Rights Amendment of the Pennsylvania Constitution.\n<\/p>\n<p>In the majority opinion, Judge Matthew S. Wolf, a Democrat, wrote that the Equal Rights Amendment \u201cguarantees a fundamental right to reproductive autonomy.\u201d Wolf was joined by Democrats Michael Wojcik and Lori A. Dumas, as well as Republican Judge Ren\u00e9e Cohn Jubelirer.\n  <\/p>\n<p>\u201cRecognizing the fundamental right to reproductive autonomy is an initial analytical step, but it then requires the proper level of scrutiny be applied to the governmental action,\u201d Wolf wrote in the majority.\n<\/p>\n<p>Republicans Patricia A. McCullough, Anne E. Covey and Stacy Wallace accused the majority of green-lighting \u201cabortions on-demand sought by Medical Assistance recipients.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI simply cannot recall another case in which this Court has decided issues of such profound public importance in this kind of summary, we-believe-you-if-you-say-so fashion that does anything but give \u2018full notice to the bench, bar, and public,\u2019\u201d McCullough wrote in the dissent.\n<\/p>\n<p>Gov. Josh Shapiro supported the ruling in a post on <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/GovernorShapiro\/status\/2046248002608636391\" rel=\"nofollow\">X<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve long opposed this unconstitutional ban, and as Governor, I did not defend it \u2014 because a woman\u2019s ability to access reproductive care should never be determined by her income,\u201d Shapiro said.\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania on Monday ruled 4-3 that the state\u2019s ban on public funds for abortion&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[10483,7939,28,3505,30,29,76735],"class_list":{"0":"post-171014","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-abortion","9":"tag-medicaid","10":"tag-pennsylvania","11":"tag-pennsylvania-commonwealth-court","12":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","13":"tag-pennsylvania-news","14":"tag-reproductive-rights"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}