In the case of Beal, Secretary, Department of Public Welfare of Pennsylvania v. Doe et al., 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states are not required to fund non-therapeutic abortions through Medicaid even if they finance other medical procedures for indigent individuals within their jurisdiction. The plaintiffs were women who had been denied funding for elective abortions by Pennsylvania's Department of Public Welfare and argued that this violated their constitutional rights under the Equal Protection Clause. However, the court held in a 6-3 decision that while states cannot prohibit or criminalize abortion as per Roe v Wade (1973), they are not obligated to pay for them either unless it is necessary to save a woman’s life or health.

In the dissenting opinion for Beal v. Doe, Justice Brennan argued that Pennsylvania's refusal to fund non-therapeutic abortions through Medicaid violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. He contended that this policy created a discriminatory distinction between medically necessary and non-medically necessary procedures, which disproportionately affected low-income women who could not afford private healthcare. Furthermore, he asserted that it was unconstitutional for states to use their funding power in ways that interfered with personal decisions about family life and childbearing - areas traditionally protected from government intrusion by privacy rights under the Constitution. Therefore, he believed Pennsylvania’s law should be struck down as an impermissible infringement on these fundamental rights.