The Supreme Court ruled Thursday morning that South Carolina had the right to block Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funding, a decision that Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson compared to the Jim Crow era.

Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic was over a South Carolina executive order that prohibited the public use of funds to go towards abortion. In July 2018, the state decided that providing Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood ran afoul of the EO and cut it.

A patient, Julie Edwards, and Planned Parenthood sued the state, claiming the state was in violation of the 1965 law that created Medicaid. The Medicaid law called for states use funding so “any individual eligible for medical assistance . . . may obtain [it] from any [provider] qualified to perform the service . . . who undertakes to provide [it]”.

READ MORE: Progressive Group to Launch $10 Million Campaign Focused on SCOTUS Reforms

In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the Supreme Court rejected this argument. The case ultimately hinged on Section 1983 of Title 42 of the US Code of Law. That law says that anyone has the right to sue if their civil rights are violated. Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that Edwards had no standing to bring the case.

“[T]he decision whether to let private plaintiffs enforce a new statutory right poses delicate questions of public policy. New rights for some mean new duties for others. And private enforcement actions, meritorious or not, can force governments to direct money away from public services and spend it instead on litigation,” Gorsuch wrote. “The job of resolving how best to weigh those competing costs and benefits belongs to the people’s elected representatives, not unelected judges charged with applying the law as they find it.”

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion, arguing that the case stretched section 1983 to its breaking point.

“The “scant resemblance” between §1983 today and §1983 as it was traditionally understood creates good reason to doubt our modern understanding,” Thomas wrote.

Justice Brown’s dissent, however, compared the case to cases brought during the Jim Crow era—or rather, the lack thereof.

“Like other §1983 skeptics, JUSTICE THOMAS seems to view the paucity of early §1983 lawsuits as evidence that the statute was originally understood to do very little. But other explanations come to mind, too—such as the fact that filing civil rights lawsuits during the Jim Crow era could be quite perilous, especially for the people whom the statute was originally meant to benefit. Many would-be plaintiffs had reason to fear that filing a lawsuit would lead to physical or economic reprisals,” Brown wrote. “Add to that the difficulty of finding a lawyer, prevailing before often-hostile juries, and (if successful) enforcing a judgment, and it is not hard to imagine that the dearth of §1983 lawsuits in the wake of Reconstruction might have myriad alternative explanations.”

Thursday’s ruling could have wide-ranging effects, allowing other states the ability to block Medicaid funds from not just Planned Parenthood but other providers.

“Even though the state is trying to claim that it has sole authority to decide who’s a qualified provider, this isn’t really about whether Planned Parenthood is a qualified provider. It’s about a political calculation on abortion,” Nicole Huberfeld, a health law professor at Boston University’s School of Public Health, told The Guardian. “Really, what’s happening here is states making politically driven decisions about access to medical care.”

Due to author JK Rowling’s hateful anti-trans crusades, The Booksmith in San Francisco has given Harry Potter the boot from its shelves.

Though Rowling has used her wealth and platform to push transphobia for a while now, the final straw for the Booksmith was when she announced the “JK Rowling Women’s Fund,” which offers legal funding to “individuals and organisations fighting to retain women’s sex-based rights in the workplace, in public life, and in protected female spaces.” (“Sex-based rights” is used as a dogwhistle in trans-exclusionary circles.)

The Booksmith now has a sign on its shelves saying that it has decided it cannot support Rowling.

“As a group of queer booksellers, we also had our adolescents shaped by wizards and elves. Look at us, it’s obvious. If you or someone you love wants to dive into the world of Harry Potter, we suggest doing so by buying used copies of these books,” the sign reads.

READ MORE: J. K. Rowling Compares ‘Transgender Hormone Therapy to Gay Conversion Therapy’

A slightly longer version of the statement appears on the Booksmith’s website, which includes a list of potential alternatives to Rowling’s series.

“Or, even better, please find below a list of bookseller-curated suggestions for books we genuinely love that also might fit the HP brief for you and yours. Many are series; some are standalone,” the site reads. “Happy reading, solidarity forever.”

The suggestions include the Morrigan Crow series by Jessica Townsend, the Earthsea books by science fiction legend Ursula K. LeGuin and The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy.

Booksmith co-owner Camden Avery told The San Francisco Standard why the store has stopped carrying the books.

“There’s a direct throughline between what [Rowling’s] doing with the money she’s making on book sales as a living author who’s still collecting royalties, and something that, frankly, harms us and our trans siblings and people that we care about in our community,” he said.

“Some people are like, ‘Enough with the politics. Just be a bookstore,’” Avery added. “But we don’t have the luxury of pretending anymore that anything that we do is not related to this political moment, this imperialist, fascist regime that we’re trying to survive.”

Though there were hints before, Rowling’s public transphobia became a large part of her online presence starting in 2020 when she wrote an essay claiming trans activists were specifically trying to “erode ‘woman’ as a political and biological class and offering cover to predators like few before it.” She’s used her wealth and power to fund anti-trans activism—including a long campaign to get the UK government to exclude trans women from the legal definition of “woman.” The UK Supreme Court ruled trans women weren’t covered by the 2010 Equality Act this April.

Her transphobia has turned previous friends and allies against her. Most recently, that includes out gay actor Stephen Fry, who read the audiobook version of the Harry Potter series. Last week, Fry spoke out against her, calling her a “lost cause.”

“She seemed to wake up or kick a hornet’s nest of transphobia which has been entirely destructive. I disagree profoundly with her on this subject. I am angry she does not disavow some of the more revolting and truly horrible, violently destructive things that people say. She does not attack those at all,” Fry said.

The stars of the original Harry Potter film series, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, have also cut ties with the author over her transphobic views.

“To the person who said they like me best when I am not ranting about politics: I like me best when I am not ignoring fascism,” Watson said on Instagram following the UK Supreme Court Equality Act ruling.

Image via Shutterstock

A video appears to show U.S. Capitol Police officers arresting disabled protesters in wheelchairs as the Senate debates cuts to medicare funding.

The video, posted to Bluesky by Aaron Black, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)’s senior political advisor, shows Capitol Police swarming the Russell Senate Office Building, escorting disabled protesters from the building, with zip ties around the protesters’ wrists.

People in wheelchairs are getting arrested right now in the Russell Senate Office Building in DC. They showed up to tell Congress not to cut their Medicaid, because they cant afford health care without it. If you look closely you can see the zip ties on their hands. #WeWontGetOverLosingMedicaid

— Aaron Black (@aaronblack.bsky.social) 2025-06-25T18:26:25.367Z

“People in wheelchairs are getting arrested right now in the Russell Senate Office Building in DC. They showed up to tell Congress not to cut their Medicaid, because they cant afford health care without it. If you look closely you can see the zip ties on their hands,” Black wrote alongside the video clip.

READ MORE: Bernie Sanders Says ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ Would Strip Health Insurance From 16 Million People

The people in the clip were protesting the proposed budget cuts to Medicaid spending in Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” The president’s proposed budget would cut Medicaid spending by $793 billion across 10 years. Medicaid currently costs the U.S. government about $606 billion per year, covering 69% of its total funding. The additional 31%, $274 billion, comes from individual states, according to health policy organization KFF.

The House saw similar scenes as disabled protesters protested the Big Beautiful Bill in May. During that protest, one person shouted “You will kill me!” while police escorted her from a meeting of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, according to the Independent. In addition to cuts, the bill requires states decide every six months on whether or not individual patients are eligible for Medicaid.

“There are lots of people with disabilities … who may not meet the specific social security definition, but who absolutely do have disabilities,” Katy Neas, the CEO of the Arc, a disability advocacy group, told The Independent.

During that protest, 26 people were arrested, according to WJLA. Capitol police said protesting inside congressional buildings is illegal. The law also prohibits protesting on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

The proposed cuts to Medicaid are controversial. An analysis published by the Annals of Internal Medicine said they could result in the additional deaths of as many as 24,600 people per year. According to a new report by Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) office, the cuts would also result in, on average, 65% more uninsured people per state.