For the second time in as many months, an Arizona official has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate a controversial state abortion law.
Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne on Wednesday asked the nation’s highest court to rule on a law that strips Medicaid funding from doctors and clinics that perform abortions.
House Bill 2800, which the Legislature passed and Gov. Jan Brewer signed in 2012, would have halted Medicaid reimbursements for contraceptives, cancer screenings, treatment for sexually transmitted diseases and annual women’s exams at more than 80 Arizona hospitals and clinics that also perform abortions.
In September, Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery asked the Supreme Court to hear a challenge to a separate abortion-related law — one that bans most abortions after 20weeks of pregnancy.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled both abortion laws are unconstitutional. Neither is currently in effect.
It is already a violation of state law to spend state or federal money on elective abortions, and that prohibition was not disputed in the lawsuit challenging HB 2800. In its ruling, the appeals court said the defunding law violates the federal law governing Medicaid because it limits patients’ options when choosing a doctor.
“The free-choice-of-provider provision unambiguously requires that states participating in the Medicaid program allow covered patients to choose among the family-planning medical practitioners they could use were they paying out of their own pockets,” the opinion states.
The court dismissed the state’s argument that Arizona has the power to determine which doctors are qualified to serve Medicaid patients, saying that would open the door to a free-for-all in which states could ban doctors for arbitrary reasons.
Since 1991, Planned Parenthood has served Medicaid patients through the state’s Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System. According to Planned Parenthood, it sees about 3,000 AHCCCS patients a year and receives about $350,000 in reimbursements.
Planned Parenthood of Arizona has fought the law.
“This litigation has already cost the state of Arizona approximately $279,000 in legal fees alone, which is what it would cost for Arizona to provide clinical breast exams or cervical-cancer screenings to thousands of AHCCCS patients,” said President and CEO Bryan Howard. “It will cost the state even more to litigate its petition to the Supreme Court.”
The conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom has been working with the state to defend the law.
Alliance senior counsel Steven H. Aden said in a statement: “Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize the work of abortionists. Arizona should be free to enforce its public policy against the taxpayer funding of abortion and in favor of the best health care for women.”
He alleges the appeals-court opinion strips states of their right to administer state Medicaid programs as they see fit.
There is no guarantee the high court will hear the case. The court historically has been interested in cases in which multiple appellate courts have issued conflicting opinions. On this issue, the lower courts have mostly been in agreement.
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