WASHINGTON, D.C., June 26, 2025—Brent Leatherwood, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, commends the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling on the case Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, allowing the state of South Carolina to exclude Planned Parenthood from its Medicaid program.
“Today’s decision by the Supreme Court is a major win for protecting vulnerable preborn lives,” said Leatherwood. “By excluding abortion providers from its Medicaid program, South Carolina rightly reflects its citizens’ values in its public health funding. The Court’s ruling will support other states as they seek to deny Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers taxpayer money. As the ERLC made clear in our brief, this decision respects the will of pro-life states, protects preborn children, and it moves us closer to our goal of ending abortion.”
The ERLC joined an amicus brief supporting South Carolina in February 2025. The brief explains that by receiving Medicaid funds to perform other services, taxpayers are essentially subsidizing Planned Parenthood’s main mission of performing abortions.
For Christians and other pro-life advocates, this case represents an opportunity to ensure taxpayer dollars aren’t directed to organizations performing abortions. Over the last 40 years, Southern Baptists have spoken against tax-payer funding of abortion at annual meetings through over 20 resolutions, including these recent examples:
- “On Anticipation of a Historic Moment in the Pro-life Movement,” 2022
- “On Taxpayer Complicity in Abortion and the Hyde Amendment,” 2021
- “On Defunding and Investigating Planned Parenthood.” 2017
As stated in the 2022 resolution “On Anticipation of a Historic Moment in the Pro-life Movement,” “RESOLVED, That we commit to stand with and pray for abortion-vulnerable women, to eliminate any perceived need for the horror of abortion, and to oppose Planned Parenthood and other predatory organizations or institutions who exploit vulnerable women for profit.”
