It's the Brian Larry Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Well, it was a decision day for the

Supreme Court today. Tomorrow, they tell us, will be the last Supreme Court decision day

of this term. Many major cases. One of them came down today. Some more will come down tomorrow.

What we received this morning was the court's ruling on Medina versus Planned Parenthood. Michael

just referred to it in the news. And we're going to talk about that now with Kate Shaw,

law professor at Penn and co-host of the Legal Affairs podcast, Strict Scrutiny. Professor Shaw,

welcome back to WNYC. Thanks so much for having me, Brian. Brief our listeners with some background.

What is, what was Medina versus Planned Parenthood?

Sure. So this is a case involving a state effort. This is South Carolina's effort to defund Planned Parenthood. So a number of states have tried to do that. This was South Carolina's effort. And some individual plaintiffs and also providers sued the state under a statute called 42 U.S.C. Section 1983. It's a federal statute

that basically allows private individuals to sue to enforce their constitutional or statutory

rights. A hugely important reconstruction statute that still gets used all the time.

And so 1983 is the vehicle, but the specific statutory argument they were making is based on the Medicaid statute, which says that if you're a Medicaid recipient, and that's, of course, the state federal kind of matching scheme that provides health insurance to low-income individuals.

So if you're a Medicaid recipient, you are entitled to receive services from qualified providers.

So that's in the federal statute.

And what these plaintiffs have argued is that Planned Parenthood is a qualified provider.

And so under the Medicaid statute, it was improper for the state to defund Planned Planned Parenthood,

making it impossible for them to receive their care from these defunded Planned Parenthood providers.

So sorry if that sounds a little complicated,

but basically the gist is that the majority here said that these individuals do not have a right under Section 1983 to sue to enforce their entitlement to services under the Medicaid statute.

And I think that has both a practical implication and a larger legal

import.

The practical implication is that it's going to be much easier for states to target Planned

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