Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts voted with the court’s liberals in declining to hear a case that could have cut off funding for Planned Parenthood.
Only formalities stand in the way of the Supreme Court, as currently constituted, slashing abortion rights as we know them, which is why the court’s punting on two choice-related cases came as something of a relief for progressives on Monday morning. Planned Parenthood is celebrating today’s win, which ensures that Medicaid patients can continue to choose its affiliates to get their birth control and their tests for sexually transmitted infections and cervical cancer.
Accusing the Court of a “refusal to do its job,” archconversative Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his dissent from the order: “I suspect it has something to do with the fact that some respondents in these cases are named ‘Planned Parenthood.’ That makes the Court’s decision particularly troubling.” An order that elicits a dyspeptic dissent from Thomas, co-signed by Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, and accusing his colleagues of cowardice has got to be a good one for liberal policy priorities, right?
But pro-choice advocates are reluctant to read too much into Kavanaugh’s vote.
