{"id":171733,"date":"2026-04-21T10:39:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T10:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/171733\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T10:39:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T10:39:07","slug":"pennsylvania-judges-say-blocking-medicaid-for-abortion-violates-state-constitution-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/171733\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania judges say blocking Medicaid for abortion violates state constitution | State"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spotlight PA<\/a>\u00a0is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania.\u00a0Sign up for our free newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

HARRISBURG \u2014 Pennsylvania\u2019s ban on state Medicaid dollars paying for low-income people\u2019s abortion care is unconstitutional, a state appellate court ruled Monday.<\/p>\n

In a 4-3 decision,\u00a0Commonwealth Court said<\/a>\u00a0the state\u2019s ban on these public dollars paying for abortions violates the Pennsylvania Constitution\u2019s Equal Rights Amendment and equal protection provisions \u201cbeyond any genuine dispute of fact.\u201d<\/p>\n

The case could still be appealed up to the state Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

It was brought by seven reproductive health providers, who had argued, among other things, that patients have a fundamental right to make their own reproductive decisions.<\/p>\n

In the court\u2019s majority opinion, Judge Matthew Wolf wrote that, \u201crecognizing this fundamental right \u2026 is necessary to restrict state government to its proper sphere, thus protecting our liberty.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a dissent, Judge Patricia McCullough accused the majority opinion judges of moving too quickly and ruling \u201cby judicial fiat,\u201d and said they are \u201ccreating a new fundamental right that has no definition, no contours, no practical applicability, and no textual support.\u201d<\/p>\n

The case has already followed a complicated path up and down Pennsylvania\u2019s appellate courts.<\/p>\n

Commonwealth Court previously dismissed the case. But in 2024 the state Supreme Court\u00a0sent the case back to the lower bench<\/a>, ordering its judges to reconsider. The high court\u00a0set a new precedent<\/a>\u00a0in that decision, saying that under Pennsylvania\u2019s Equal Rights Amendment, abortion restrictions could be considered sex-based discrimination. The justices also said that any law that creates such a \u201csex-based distinction is presumptively unconstitutional,\u201d unless the state can prove the distinction is necessary.<\/p>\n

That 2024 decision by the high court\u00a0was considered an important window<\/a>\u00a0into the way the justices would likely rule on the merits of the case.<\/p>\n

Abortion is legal through 23 weeks of pregnancy in Pennsylvania. However, the commonwealth has a longstanding ban on allowing federal or state funds to be used for abortion care, unless the case involves rape, incest, or the potential death of the mother.<\/p>\n

Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, had not defended the state\u2019s Medicaid coverage exclusion in court.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve long opposed this unconstitutional ban, and as Governor, I did not defend it \u2014 because a woman’s ability to access reproductive care should never be determined by her income,\u201d Shapiro said in a statement on social media Monday.<\/p>\n

Attorney General Dave Sunday, a Republican, intervened in the case to argue, among other things, that the state has an interest in \u201cprotecting fetal life,\u201d that the coverage exclusion is one mechanism through which the legislature can pursue that interest, and that preventing abortion can actually protect women from psychological harm.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Sunday said in a statement that the office is \u201creviewing the Court\u2019s opinions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The abortion providers meanwhile argued that preventing public dollars from funding abortion amounts to sex-based discrimination.<\/p>\n

Among them were the Planned Parenthood chapters for Southeastern, eastern and central, and Western Pennsylvania. In\u00a0a joint statement<\/a>\u00a0Monday, the organizations called Commonwealth Court\u2019s decision \u201ca win for equality.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor decades, Pennsylvania has had a two-tier system for reproductive health care: abortion access for those who can pay, and a ban for those who can\u2019t,\u201d they wrote, adding, \u201cWhile we wait to see the next legal steps this case takes, we will be celebrating.\u201d<\/p>\n

BEFORE YOU GO\u2026\u00a0If you learned something from this article, pay it forward and contribute to Spotlight PA at\u00a0spotlightpa.org\/donate<\/a>. Spotlight PA is funded by\u00a0foundations and readers like you<\/a>\u00a0who are committed to accountability journalism that gets results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spotlight PA\u00a0is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[10483,4464,60540,449,77057,740,742,11936,28,30,29,382,77056,2890,77055,16121,16641],"class_list":{"0":"post-171733","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-abortion","9":"tag-civil-rights-and-liberties","10":"tag-constitutional-law","11":"tag-court","12":"tag-fundamental-rights","13":"tag-justice","14":"tag-law","15":"tag-law-of-the-united-states","16":"tag-pennsylvania","17":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","18":"tag-pennsylvania-news","19":"tag-politics-of-the-united-states","20":"tag-precedent","21":"tag-public-law","22":"tag-sexual-and-reproductive-health","23":"tag-state-supreme-court","24":"tag-supreme-court-of-the-united-states"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171733","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=171733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}