A Pennsylvania judge has cleared the way for the state's Medicaid program to begin covering abortions while a constitutional challenge plays out before the state Supreme Court.
In a ruling issued this week, Commonwealth Court Judge Matthew Wolf lifted an automatic pause on the court's April ruling that overturned Pennsylvania's decades-long ban on using Medicaid to cover abortions.
"This court has held the coverage exclusion cannot be enforced without violating [constitutional] rights," Wolf said. "Thus, continued enforcement of the coverage exclusion irreparably injures providers and their prospective patients as a matter of our most fundamental law."
Wolf found that public interest favors allowing the ban to be lifted, rather than continuing to enforce a law that has been deemed presumptively unconstitutional.
While the courts overturned the ban in April, the state's Republican Attorney General Dave Sunday appealed the ruling to the higher court which paused the court's order. Earlier this week, abortion providers asked the court to lift the pause, allowing coverage to begin while the appeal is pending.
In the ruling, Wolf acknowledged that more often laws remain in place unless the government is plainly shown to have violated the constitution. But "this case is the exception that proves the rule," he said.
"Our Supreme Court applied a rare presumption against the constitutional validity of the coverage exclusion," Wolf wrote.
In its 2024 ruling, the state Supreme Court deemed the coverage exclusion "presumptively unconstitutional" which Wolf said jettisoned standard procedure that would keep the ban in place while the matter remains in court. The coverage ban was again deemed unconstitutional by the Commonwealth Court in April.
Abortion providers and advocates celebrated the ruling Thursday, calling it a milestone victory in reproductive freedom.
"At last, a terrible injustice that has harmed Pennsylvanians for decades has ended," said Susan Frietsche, executive director of Women's Law Project, the firm representing providers.
"Pennsylvania can no longer target women and birthing people on Medicaid to deprive them of their fundamental right to reproductive autonomy," she said. "As of today, patients enrolled in Medicaid who need abortion care will be covered as the case proceeds."
The battle is far from over. The state's Attorney General declined to comment on the latest ruling in the case Thursday.
The lawsuit is unusual, as it puts Pennsylvania's Republican Attorney General at odds with the state's Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has been a vocal advocate of overturning the ban, allowing for abortion coverage under Medicaid.
"I've long opposed this unconstitutional ban, and as governor, I did not defend it — because a woman's ability to access reproductive care should never be determined by her income," he said in April after the Commonwealth Court ruling overturned the ban.
Shapiro did not immediately respond to WESA's request for comment Thursday.
Wolf's opinion highlighted the split, and said it weakened any claim that maintaining the coverage ban while the case is appealed was necessary.
This is not the final ruling on whether Pennsylvania's Medicaid abortion coverage exclusion is constitutional. That question is now before the state's Supreme Court. A hearing in the matter has not yet been scheduled.
This story is developing.
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