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HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (LifeSiteNews) — Commonwealth Court Judge Matthew Wolf has declined to allow Pennsylvania to enforce a ban on taxpayer funding for abortion while its constitutionality is considered by the state Supreme Court.
In April, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruled 4-3 that a ban on subsidizing abortions through the state Medicaid program, which has stood since 1982, violates the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) of the Pennsylvania Constitution. According to the state ERA: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania because of the sex of the individual.”
Wolf wrote for the majority that this language “guarantees a fundamental right to reproductive autonomy,” while Judge Patricia McCullough dissented, stating, “I am not convinced that a right to reproductive autonomy or anything like it exists in the Pennsylvania Constitution to afford anyone a constitutional right to obtain an abortion.”
Live Action reports that Attorney General Dave Sunday filed an appeal in May, resulting in a temporary stay of the ruling. But Wolf ended the stay on Wednesday, allowing taxpayer funding of abortion to resume, at least temporarily, on the grounds that “continued enforcement of the coverage exclusion irreparably injures providers and their prospective patients as a matter of our most fundamental law.”
“Research shows that, when taxpayer funding of abortion occurs, abortion totals skyrocket,” responded Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation Executive Director Maria Gallagher. “It is a tragedy of immense proportions. A precious baby dies, and a mother is left to grieve the loss.”
State and federal cuts to the abortion industry’s government funding have significantly impacted its bottom line. According to Operation Rescue, 54 abortion facilities shut their doors in 2024, 36 of which were Planned Parenthood locations.
Last July, President Donald Trump signed into law his controversial “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (BBB), a wide-ranging policy package that included a one-year ban on federal tax dollars going through Medicaid to any recipient that provides abortions for reasons other than rape, incest, or supposed threats to the mother’s life. But that ban expired earlier this month, allowing much of the abortion industry’s federal funding to resume.
