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HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania is a step closer to a final verdict on whether state Medicaid dollars can pay for low-income people’s abortion care.
In a 4-3 decision, the Commonwealth Court ruled Monday that the state’s existing ban on these public dollars paying for abortions violates the Pennsylvania Constitution’s Equal Rights Amendment and equal protection provisions “beyond any genuine dispute of fact.”
Now, the case will likely go to the state Supreme Court for a final ruling.
It has already followed a complicated path up and down Pennsylvania’s appellate courts.
Commonwealth Court previously dismissed the case. But in 2024, the state Supreme Court sent the case back to the lower bench, ordering its judges to reconsider. The high court set a new precedent in that decision, saying that under Pennsylvania’s Equal Rights Amendment, abortion restrictions could be considered sex-based discrimination. The justices also said that any law that creates such a “sex-based distinction is presumptively unconstitutional,” unless the state can prove the distinction is necessary.
That 2024 decision by the high court was considered an important window into the way the justices would likely rule on the merits of the case.
Abortion is legal through 23 weeks of pregnancy in Pennsylvania. However, the state 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.
The case was brought by seven reproductive health providers.
Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, had not defended the state’s Medicaid coverage exclusion in court.
“I’ve long opposed this unconstitutional ban, and as Governor, I did not defend it — because a woman’s ability to access reproductive care should never be determined by her income,” Shapiro said in a statement on social media Monday.
Attorney General Dave Sunday, a Republican, intervened in the case to argue, among other things, that the state has an interest in “protecting fetal life,” 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.
The abortion providers, meanwhile, argued that preventing public dollars from funding abortion amounts to sex-based discrimination.
