MD, states sue to block new conditions for family-planning grants

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown is co-leading a group of mostly Democratic-led states that filed a lawsuit on Thursday seeking to block President Donald Trump‘s administration from stripping funding for family planning services for low-income and uninsured people from states and providers that oppose the Republican president’s agenda.

The lawsuit by officials from 23 states, filed in Maryland federal court, claims that new conditions on what is known as Title X funding will unlawfully penalize states and providers that refuse to discourage contraception or provide gender-affirming care to transgender people.

Brown is joined in the lawsuit with 21 other attorneys general and two governors.

“For decades, federal family planning funding has enabled Maryland to provide tens of thousands of families with care they could not otherwise afford,” said Brown. “Cutting off that funding does not merely eliminate a budget line. It means fewer cancer screenings and more preventable diseases going undetected. My Office will not stand by while the federal government puts politics ahead of patients’ health.”

The states in their lawsuit said that losing Title X funding would have devastating consequences for providers and patients. In New York, for example, the funding supports 165 clinics that have served more than 250,000 mostly low-income patients, according to the office of the state’s Democratic attorney general, Letitia James.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which administers the funding, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit is led by New York, Maryland and Massachusetts, which were joined by California, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey and Virginia, among other states.

Created in 1970, Title X provides about $286 million in annual grants for family planning and related health services such as cancer screenings and treatment for sexually transmitted infections. Under federal law, Title X funds cannot be used to pay for abortion services.

HHS in April announced that, for the first time, it would require applicants for Title X funding to align their programs with the administration’s political priorities. That includes eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs, recognizing male and female as the only two sexes, and encouraging abstinence and “natural family planning” instead of contraception.

The states claim the new HHS policy, which was amended last month, conflicts with the law that created the Title X program. That law requires providers to offer a broad range of counseling and prohibits discrimination against patients.

The lawsuit also alleges that the Trump administration adopted the policy without going through the formal rulemaking process required by federal law, which includes publishing a proposal and seeking public comment.

Planned Parenthood, which oversees dozens of clinics that rely on Title X funding, filed a lawsuit against HHS last month making similar claims. That case is pending in Washington, D.C. federal court.

(Reporting for Reuters by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by David Gregorio).