The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to review lower court decisions that blocked efforts in two states to end public funding to Planned Parenthood, refusing for now to get involved in state battles over abortion rights.
The cases did not touch on abortion itself, but three justices who said the court should have accepted the cases said that was the reason the court declined to get involved.
“What explains the court’s refusal to do its job here? I suspect it has something to do with the fact that some respondents in these cases are named ‘Planned Parenthood,’” wrote Justice Clarence Thomas.
He was joined by Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch. But it takes four justices to accept a case, and two other of the court’s conservatives, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh did not join Thomas’s opinion.
