CHICAGO – The US Ninth Circuit's recent decision to allow the Trump Administration to redirect millions of federal dollars away from the abortion industry was applauded by the Thomas More Society, in partnership with Susan B. Anthony List.
The Title X grants, first enacted in 1970, have never legally funded abortions or abortion referrals, the two groups said.
“Title X has always prohibited the use of its funds by programs where abortion is a method of family planning,” explained Sarah Pitlyk, Thomas More Society Special Counsel. “The now reaffirmed regulations simply enforced those terms, ensuring that taxpayer funds will only be used for permitted purposes. The Thomas More Society will continue to support the goal of ensuring that taxpayer dollars do not support the abortion industry.”
The taxpayer-funded federal program’s goal has always been to provide certain types of pre-pregnancy family planning services, including birth control. The ruling upholds taxpayers who object to their tax dollars funding the abortion industry, Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser said.
“This ruling is a victory for the majority of Americans who do not want to fund the abortion industry with their tax dollars. The voters have consistently voiced their opposition to taxpayer funding of abortion – it is even unpopular among self-described ‘pro-choice’ Americans," she said. "The Protect Life Rule simply draws a bright line between abortion and family planning, stopping abortion businesses like Planned Parenthood from treating Title X as their private slush fund without reducing funding by a dime.”
Handed down on June 20, 2019, this ruling affirms the wording announced in February 2019 by the United States Department of Health and Human Services. The revision clarified and affirmed the Title X prohibition on funding of abortions by money meant for family planning. In April, federal judges in California, Washington, and Oregon blocked the Title X regulations when those states sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for the right to continue subsidizing abortion providers, even though it is prohibited by federal law.
Upon the enjoining of the new Title X regulations, originally set to take effect in May 2019, the Thomas More Society took up the standard in the battle to uphold the revisions, known as the Protect Life Rule. As counsel to Susan B. Anthony List, the nonprofit public interest law firm filed amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs in five states in response to eight lawsuits filed by Planned Parenthood and others to challenge the Trump administration rule.
In prohibiting publicly funded programs from promoting abortion, Title X is consistent with a number of federal laws favoring childbirth over abortion. For example, the Hyde Amendment bars the use of Medicaid funds for abortion, and the Coates-Snow and Weldon Amendments provide special protections for health care providers who decline to facilitate or provide abortions. Title X applies the same preference for childbirth over abortion in the context of taxpayer-funded family planning services.
Abortion providers’ own arguments detail the difficulty they would have disentangling abortion from their other services. Thomas More Society and Susan B. Anthony List pointed out in the amicus briefs they filed that the industry’s arguments only reinforce the need for new regulations to better enforce the separation required by the Title X statute.
Under the Protect Life Rule, abortion centers cannot operate as taxpayer-funded family planning centers. Additionally, Title X locations cannot perform abortions or make abortion referrals. Title X providers are not prohibited from providing neutral, non-directive counseling about abortion and this law does not prevent anyone from obtaining Title X services. It does not reduce family planning funding but directs tax dollars to Title X centers that do not promote or perform abortions.
