The courts and recent pro-life developments

In 2021, the Supreme Court finally invalidated the disastrous Roe v. Wade, wherein the Justices, over fifty years ago, “discovered” the heretofore unknown constitutional right to abortion emanating from “penumbras” in the Bill of Rights. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization , having explicitly overruled Roe, was a major win for pro-life supporters as the Court returned the issue to individual states.

Recent developments, though, reflect differing judicial attitudes and responses regarding efforts to protect the unborn.

On June 26, 2025, in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, the Supreme Court reasoned that South Carolina (and, by extension, other pro-life states) has the right to discontinue public funding to Planned Parenthood so that it can continue to provide abortions.

Conversely, a related development occurred in Planned Parenthood Federation of America v. Kennedy, after Congress passed and President Trump signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” into law on July 4, 2025. At issue was the provision defunding Planned Parenthood.

On July 7, 2025, a federal trial court judge in Massachusetts, in an act of raw judicial activism violating the constitutional separation of powers, issued a terse two-page restraining order directing the Department of Health and Human Services, along with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, to continue disbursing funds as usual to Planned Parenthood; the order does not impact other abortion providers.

Earlier, on July 2, 2025, in Kaul v. Urmanski, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin invalidated an 1849 statute banning abortion consistent with the state’s pro-abortion stance.

Legal developments

In reversing earlier orders to the contrary in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, the Supreme Court, in a six-to-three judgment, decided that South Carolina has the right to defund Planned Parenthood. Writing for a six-to-three Court in deferring to state control, Justice Gorsuch, joined by Chief Justice Roberts along with Justices Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, wrote that whether to permit private enforcement poses delicate policy questions involving competing costs and benefits that are better left to elected representatives rather than judges. Rounding out the Court’s opinion, Kavanaugh mused that the challenging issue of public funding for abortion, requiring people to pay for procedures with which they disagree morally, “poses a question of public policy that, under our system of government, only Congress may answer” under its enumerated Article I spending power.

Turning to Kaul v. Urmanski, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, in a 4-3 judgment, invalidated an 1849 law banning nearly all abortions. The court decreed that women can continue to have access to what it euphemistically refers to as critical abortion-related health services. Considering that the goal of such procedures is to terminate the life of the unborn, it is difficult to understand how abortion is a form of health service. As the dissent reasoned, “[a]ny remaining doubt over whether the majority’s decisions are motivated by the policy predilections of its members has been extinguished by its feeble attempt to justify a raw exercise of political power… Not content with effacing the law, [the majority] rewrites history, erases and insults women by referring to mothers as ‘pregnant people,’ slanders proponents of the pro-life perspective, and broadcasts dangerously false narratives about laws restricting abortion.”

In six short paragraphs in Planned Parenthood Federation of America v. Kennedy, totaling all of twenty-four lines, without even offering a hint of rationale, making any meaningful analysis impossible, the trial court judge simply enjoined the enforcement of the disputed funding provision for fourteen days. Almost a week later, on July 11, 2025, the judge issued a rambling nine-page rationale in which she claimed that Bill defunding Planned Parenthood violated its First Amendment right to associate with others in pursuit of their mutual desired political, educational, and/or social ends.

Reflections

The ongoing irony is the behavior of Planned Parenthood officials and supporters who tout the need for “choice.” The organization, founded in 1916 by eugenicist Margaret Sanger, has about 600 offices nationally, with about 2 million women visiting annually. As noted by Justice Clarence Thomas in 2019, Planned Parenthood has a long-documented and shameful history of eugenics tinged with racism. Sanger, in her writings and through Planned Parenthood, openly advocated abortion largely targeting people of color. She also described its role as being designed to prevent “the reproduction of the unfit…”

In doing so, Sanger and her followers represent the antithesis of choice as they ignore the wishes of those with whom they disagree, advancing their perspective alone, brooking no dissent, shouting down all others. These activists use abortion to destroy the most innocent among us in the womb, their natural place of safety and comfort, while ignoring the rights of the unborn and the taxpayers they seek to compel to pay for the “services” they provide.

As evidence of its destructiveness in cheapening life, Planned Parenthood’s 2023-24 Annual Report stated that it performed over 400,000 abortions, an increase of 9,515 from the previous year, while its public funding rose by over 13%, to $792.2 million.

An important issue brought to the fore by this debate is the role of the courts and the separation of powers in the United States’ tripartite system of government. As of this writing, while the trial court order has yet to be appealed or reversed, there is little doubt that it will be struck down as blatant judicial overreach by an activist jurist. An Obama appointee, this judge was likely handpicked to engage in the act by the “imperial judiciary” that Justice Amy Barrett so eloquently decried in the Court’s order invalidating universal injunctions. I believe it is time for the Supreme Court to intervene to rein in these unelected jurists serving as politicians in black robes, lest they continue to inflict significant, long-lasting damage to the reputation of the federal judiciary.

In sum, reflecting on recent judicial developments addressing the sanctity of the life of our precious unborn, the words of the Psalmist come to mind “[f]or you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Moreover, as the Prophet Jeremiah, echoing the Psalmist, added “[b]efore I formed you in the womb I knew you.” While it may be too much to expect the activists of Planned Parenthood to amend their ways and respect, let alone expend as much energy to preserve life as they do to destroy it. Hopefully, the Supreme Court will continue to lead the way by being steadfast in defending the lives of the unborn.