Supreme Court Rules on Cases regarding Birthright Citizenship, Medicaid funds for Planned Parenthood, Youth LGBTQIA2S+ Books

(June 27, 2025) During its final day of session, the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruled on a number of critical and controversial cases of importance to social workers and their clients and communities:

Birthright Citizenship: In a 6-3 vote along ideological lines, SCOTUS overturned decades of legal precedent and granted the Trump administration's request to limit universal injunctions issued by federal courts. “Universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts," wrote conservative justices, who returned the case to lower courts to reconsider these broad orders. However, the opinion also blocked President Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship from taking effect for 30 days, while litigation continues.

Defunding Planned Parenthood and other women’s health facilities: SCOTUS ruled that South Carolina was within its rights to bar Planned Parenthood's access to federal Medicaid funding, even for non-abortion services such as cancer screenings, testing for sexually transmitted diseases, and birth control access. The decision is expected to spark immediate similar legislation in other states whose legislators have battled to total defund the organization. At the core was a provision in the federal Medicaid law that guarantees Medicaid patients the ability to choose their doctors, e.g., entitled to "any qualified and willing provider." However, the state argued successfully that it could disqualify Medicaid providers for "any reason that state law allows." Gov. Henry McMaster celebrated the decision, saying, "Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize abortion providers who are in direct opposition to their beliefs."

LGBTQIA2S+ Issues in Schools: In another ideologically based 6-3 vote, SCOTUS declared that school systems must, for now, give parents an opt-out option that excuses their children from class without penalty when course material conflicts with their religious beliefs. The decision means education leaders and teachers have to develop complex administrative systems to track an array of potential parental opt-out demands such as when LGBTQIA2S+ characters appear in children’s books or science classes teach Darwin's theory of evolution.