SCOTUS Says South Carolina Can Defund Planned Parenthood. Will Other States Follow?

The Supreme Court has sided with South Carolina's efforts to defund Planned Parenthood. Lower court rulings allowed Medicaid patients to sue over the state's restrictions on Medicaid funding for their healthcare clinics, which the Supreme Court overturned in a 6-3 decision on Thursday. Rebecca Grant, who writes about reproductive rights, says South Carolina’s restrictions will likely be taken up by other states and could result in the closure of potentially hundreds of reproductive healthcare clinics. Grant outlines the alternative healthcare methods that many are forced to turn to in the face of dangerous and — since the fall of Roe v. Wade— increasingly draconian abortion restrictions. “We know throughout history that making abortion illegal or trying to ban it does not make it go away,” she says. This underground network of abortion access in the United States is the subject of Grant’s new book, "Access: Inside the Abortion Underground and the Sixty-Year Battle for Reproductive Freedom."

Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET.