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 The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a case brought by Republican-led states that were seeking to defund Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood and other organizations that provide women's reproductive health services. | Zach Gibson/Getty Images legal Kavanaugh, Roberts side with liberal judges on Planned Parenthood case 
 
 The Supreme Court on Monday declined to review whether states can block Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers from their Medicaid programs, passing on a pair of cases that would have served as the first major abortion test for the court’s new conservative majority. Chief Justice John Roberts and the newest justice, Brett Kavanaugh, joined the court's four liberal jurists in turning away a pair of petitions from Kansas and Louisiana seeking the ban on abortion providers. It would have taken four justices to agree to hear the issue, and only three conservative justices -- Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch -- voted to hear the case. But, he added, "some tenuous connection to a politically fraught issue does not justify abdicating our judicial duty." Rather, it involves an effort by two states to block Medicaid funding for some abortion providers that, like Planned Parenthood, get Medicaid funding for providing other services to low-income women, services like cancer screenings, prenatal services, birth control and ultrasounds. Catherine Glenn Foster, president of Americans United for Life, said the group "will continue to fight to protect states from being forced to use their limited public funds to subsidize abortion businesses.” 
 
 Dr. Leana Wen, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, hailed the court's decision to leave lower court rulings alone. Circuit Court of Appeals has held that states do have the right to terminate a provider’s Medicaid contract and that residents cannot challenge that decision.
– Planned Parenthood got some good news from the Supreme Court on Monday, as new Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the court's more liberal judges—as did Chief Justice John Roberts—in deciding not to hear a case involving the group. The upshot is that state court rulings will remain in place; those rulings allow Planned Parenthood to contest laws in Louisiana and Kansas to defund the organization. If either Kavanaugh or Roberts had joined conservative justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch, the court would have taken up the case, turning it into the first major abortion test of the new court, reports Politico. Lawmakers in the two states sought to deny public funding to Planned Parenthood because the group provides abortions. However, federal law already prohibits Medicaid funds from being used for abortions, notes NPR. In his dissent, Thomas blasted the decision. "What explains the Court's refusal to do its job here?" he wrote. "I suspect it has something to do with the fact that some respondents in these cases are named Planned Parenthood." He contended that the cases at hand "are not about abortion rights" but "about private rights of action under the Medicaid Act," per CNN. Still, USA Today sees the court's move as a setback for conservative interest groups who have been pushing for action on Planned Parenthood over the issue of abortion. (Abortion rights groups won a reprieve in Iowa earlier this year.)