The US Supreme Court cleared the way on Thursday for states to potentially cut off funding for Planned Parenthood, one of the country's largest abortion providers.

Planned Parenthood is already barred from receiving federal money for abortion care but the 6-3 ruling would also allow states to cut off reimbursements for other medical services it provides to low-income Americans under the Medicaid program.

The three liberal justices on the top court dissented.

The case stems from an executive order issued by South Carolina's Republican governor Henry McMaster in 2018 cutting off Medicaid funding to the two Planned Parenthood clinics in the state.

The Medicaid reimbursements were not abortion-related, but McMaster said providing any funding to Planned Parenthood amounts to a taxpayer "subsidy of abortion," which is banned in South Carolina for women who are more than six weeks pregnant.

Planned Parenthood, which provides a wide range of reproductive health services, and a South Carolina woman suffering from diabetes, filed suit against the state arguing that Medicaid patients have the right to receive care from any qualified provider.

An appeals court ruled that Planned Parenthood cannot be excluded from the state's Medicaid program and South Carolina appealed to the Supreme Court, where conservatives wield a 6-3 majority.

The court ruled that a Medicaid patient cannot sue the state to receive medical care from a provider of their choosing.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in a dissent joined by the two other liberal justices, disagreed.

"Congress enacted the Medicaid Act's free-choice-of-provider provision to ensure that Medicaid recipients have the right to choose their own doctors," Jackson said. "Today's decision is likely to result in tangible harm to real people."

The Supreme Court ruling was welcomed by the anti-abortion group SBA Pro-Life America, which called it a "major win for babies and their mothers."

It clears the way for South Carolina and other states "to stop funding big abortion businesses like Planned Parenthood in their Medicaid programs," it said on X.

Paige Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, called the ruling a "grave injustice" and said it "promises to send South Carolina deeper into a health care crisis."

The Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 case that established federal protections for abortion access, in June 2022. 

Since then, more than 20 of the 50 US states have imposed strict limits on abortion, or even outright bans.