Abortion Providers Get Second Go at Undoing Medicaid Exclusion

Pennsylvania’s Human Service Department must defend a state law and regulations that exclude most abortions from Medicaid coverage while paying for pregnancy-related care, the state’s top court said Monday.

Abortion providers in the state had standing to challenge the exclusion based on the Pennsylvania Constitution’s Equal Rights Amendment and equal protection provisions, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said in a fragmented majority ruling. The court also overruled a nearly 40-year-old precedent that had upheld the coverage exclusion against a similar challenge.

In 1985’s Fischer v. Department of Public Welfare, the court viewed the exclusion as differentiating between taxpayer-funded medical services, ...