Pa. health-care providers and lawmakers face off in state Supreme Court case to decide Medicaid coverage for abortion

Pennsylvania’s high court is weighing whether a state rule prohibiting low-income people from paying for abortions with state-funded health insurance violates their equal rights and discriminates against women.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Wednesday heard oral arguments in a case over whether Medicaid can pay for abortions for low-income people. Activists have also asked the justices to recognize a right to an abortion in the state constitution, months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that there is no such right under the U.S. Constitution.

Pennsylvania’s Medicaid program, the state and federally funded health plan for low-income people, currently covers abortion only in instances of rape, incest, and to save a woman’s life.

A group of providers led by Allegheny Reproductive Health Center, one of two abortion clinics in Pittsburgh, sued over the rule, arguing that it violates equal rights and discriminates against women. The Equal Rights Amendment of the Pennsylvania Constitution forbids discrimination on the basis of sex.

Lawyers representing the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, which oversees Medicaid under Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, and Republican state lawmakers called on the court to look more narrowly at the issue, specifically whether pregnant people have a right to taxpayer-funded abortion.

» READ MORE: The latest battle over abortion rights in Pa. is all about the state constitution. Here’s what to know.

“This is not a case about the right to abortion in Pennsylvania,” said Matthew Haverstick, a lawyer representing Pennsylvania senators who joined in challenging the lawsuit. “This is a funding case.”

In oral arguments Wednesday, lawyers from the Women’s Law Project, representing abortion providers, said Medicaid’s restriction on abortion coverage goes against Pennsylvania’s Equal Rights Amendment, which says services can’t be denied based on sex.

Medicaid covers “most other” essential health services, including pregnancy, childbirth, and men’s reproductive health. If these services are covered, abortion should be, too, said Susan J. Frietsche, interim codirector of the Women’s Law Project.

“There is simply no comparable medical care that men need that Medicaid carves out,” she said.

» READ MORE: How a proposed change to the Pa. constitution could reshape the the future of abortion

Regardless of whether abortion is a constitutionally protected right, the state is not obligated to pay for it, Haverstick said.

“There are only a few times where the commonwealth is required to pay for our exercise of Article I rights,” for instance education, he said, referencing the part of the Pennsylvania Constitution that details basic rights of residents.

The court is expected to rule in the coming months.

Staff writers Jeremy Roebuck and Jonathan Lai contributed to this article.