A Pennsylvania court on Monday said that the state’s constitution guarantees a right to abortion while striking down a decades-long law banning the use of state Medicaid funds to cover abortion costs.
The ruling by a divided seven-judge panel of the appellate-level commonwealth court is a major victory for Planned Parenthood and abortion clinic operators who first sued Pennsylvania over its Medicaid funding restrictions in 2019.
While the case initially centered over state Medicaid limitations, the stakes significantly expanded after the US supreme court in 2022 ended nearly a half-century of federal abortion protections by overturning Roe v Wade.
The court’s finding on Monday marks the first time that the right to an abortion is protected by the Pennsylvania constitution, joining a handful of states where reproductive rights advocates have found success in protecting abortion access by pointing to state constitutions.
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