The US Supreme Court [official website] denied review [order list, PDF] in New Hampshire Right to Life v. Department of Health & Human Services [docket; cert. petition, PDF] on Monday. The anti-abortion group petitioned the court to clarify Exemption 4 of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) [official website] in order to get access to Planned Parenthood [advocacy website] documents that dealt with a $1 million federal grant in 2011. These papers included internal documents that explained how Planned Parenthood operates its clinics. The exemption is a privacy clause that protects commercial information that private organizations are required to share with the federal government. The court did not explain its order, but in dissent Justice Clarence Thomas stated that the appeals court decision “perpetuates an unsupported interpretation” of the federal FOIA.

The case was brought before the Supreme Court after a federal district court judge and the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld the refusal by Health and Human Services (HHS) to overturn documents concerning Planned Parenthood under Exemption 4. This was the result of HHS directly funding Planned Parenthood after New Hampshire refused [SCOTUSblog report] to grant funds for Planned Parenthood in concern that “taxpayer funds were being used to subsidize abortions.” Abortion and reproductive rights [JURIST backgrounder] have been at the forefront of legal debate over the past several months in the US. Last month the US House of Representatives approved the Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2015 [JURIST report], a bill that would cut all federal funding to women’s healthcare provider Planned Parenthood. Also in October the US District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee lifted [JURIST report] a temporary restraining order that limited the state in enforcing new abortion laws regarding licensing standards for clinics. In July Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker enacted the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act [JURIST report], limiting the ability of a woman to seek an abortion more than 20 weeks into her pregnancy.