The last week of June, the United States Supreme Court ended its 2024-2025 term with a flurry of high-profile rulings that will impact parental rights, religious freedom, the fight against the radical LGBT agenda, and more. The pro-life movement also scored two major victories with Diocese of Albany v. Harris and Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic. Here’s what those rulings mean for the future.

Diocese of Albany v. Harris

In order to understand the Supreme Court’s actions in the Diocese of Albany case, you first need to know that on June 5, the justices ruled that the government cannot discriminate between religious groups in the pivotal religious freedom case Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission. The unanimous decision in Catholic Charities established that courts are not at liberty to interpret theological differences between denominations without surviving strict scrutiny (which mandates that the law must be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest).

In light of this ruling, the Supreme Court ordered New York courts to reconsider Diocese of Albany v. Harris, which challenged the state’s mandate that religious organizations cover the cost of abortions for employees despite religious objections to the practice.

The case began in 2017, when a group of nuns, Catholic dioceses, Christian churches, and faith-based social organizations challenged the mandate that required them to pay for abortions in their employees’ health plans. The mandate initially exempted all companies with religious objections, but eventually narrowed the exemption to cover “only religious groups that primarily teach religion and primarily serve and hire those who share their faith.” This disqualified numerous religious ministries that serve all people, regardless of faith, including the groups involved in the legal challenge.

New York courts declined to offer protection to the religious groups as a result of the challenge, but in 2021, the US Supreme Court reversed that ruling and asked the lower court to reconsider the case. The New York courts ignored that instruction, and religious groups were required to abide by the unconstitutional mandate. 

Fast-forward to today, the Supreme Court has ordered New York to reconsider the case based on the new precedent in Catholic Charities, which forbids the court from engaging in “theological line drawing.” In a practical sense, this means that if the exemption applies to some religious organizations, it must apply to all religious organizations. The court cannot differentiate among them based on who they serve, hire, or what they believe. 

Here’s the good news: “Last week, New York admitted that its scheme could not stand as written based on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in favor of Catholic Charities Bureau,” Becket Fund for Religious Liberty wrote.

“Religious groups in the Empire State should not be forced to provide insurance coverage that violates their deeply held religious beliefs,” Noel J. Francisco of Jones Day’s Washington office stated. “We are confident that New York will finally get the message and stop discriminating against religious objectors.” 

Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic

In Medina, the US Supreme Court cleared the path for states to fully defund Planned Parenthood by cutting all Medicaid funding to the abortion giant. 

In 2018, South Carolina’s governor issued an executive order “directing the Department of Health and Human Services to terminate abortion clinics from the Medicaid program.” This impacted two Planned Parenthood clinics in the state, which were “no longer qualified to provide services to Medicaid beneficiaries.” Planned Parenthood challenged the order, but when the case made its way to the US Supreme Court, the justices ruled in a 6-3 split along ideological lines that states reserve the right to cut Medicaid funding to clinics that provide abortions.

These two rulings have broad implications for the pro-life movement and bolster religious freedom all across the nation, enabling states to defund Planned Parenthood and protecting religious groups from covering the cost of abortion. Praise God!