Planned Parenthood in Ohio may lose some federal funding after court ruling

CINCINNATI (WCMH) – Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio’s federal funding may be in jeopardy after a court ruled that the organization’s Title X grant eligibility caused irreparable harm to the state of Ohio.

The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals granted Ohio a preliminary injunction Thursday, blocking federal agency rules that allow Title X recipients to offer Title X services and abortion services in the same location, so long as the operations are sufficiently separate. The injunction means Trump-era agency rules that prohibit Title X recipients from providing referrals for abortion will apply to Ohio.

Ohio and 11 other states sought a block on 2021 rules from taking effect, arguing that allowing providers to offer Title X and abortion services in the same location amounted to the indirect funding of abortion care, as “every dollar an abortion provider receives through Title X frees up another dollar that the grantee can use to subsidize abortion.”

A split Sixth Circuit panel on Thursday ruled that the states are likely to succeed on the merits of their complaint but only blocked the rule from going into effect in Ohio, the sole state to provide evidence that its Title X funding decreased under the new rule.

“Whatever your opinion on abortion as a moral matter, the court vindicated Congress’ considered judgment that tax dollars should not fund programs that use abortion as a method of family planning,” Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said in a Friday afternoon news release.

The news release from Yost’s office said his team is “currently assessing the full impact of the injunction” and said that Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio may have to forfeit its funding due to the preliminary injunction. Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio declined to comment on the ruling.

Title X is a 53-year-old, federally funded program that offers grants to clinics that provide family planning services at low or no cost to patients, who often are low-income. The law itself forbids the use of funds for abortion services, but the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is tasked with determining more specific funding rules.

HHS’s rules have changed several times since then, yo-yoing between allowing grant recipients to provide Title X services and abortion-related services in the same location, and requiring them to be physically separate. Title X eligibility rules have always required separate finances for abortion services and Title X programs.

Different administrations have also ushered in different rules on abortion referrals. For many years, HHS required clinics to provide “nondirective” counseling on all family planning options, including abortion, and to provide abortion referrals upon patient request.

In 2019, however, HHS under former President Donald Trump released a new rule forbidding clinics from offering Title X services and abortion-related services in the same location, and from providing abortion referrals except in cases of medical emergency, rape or incest. In light of the changes, Planned Parenthood – including Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio – pulled out of the Title X program.

Without Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio, the Ohio Department of Health was the only Title X provider in the state. Consequently, in 2020 and 2021, the state received $8.8 million each year in Title X funding.

Under President Joe Biden, HHS in 2021 released new rules revoking the Trump-era restrictions and restoring the abortion referral requirement. Planned Parenthood reentered the program.

Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia and other states sued to block the rule but were denied a preliminary injunction by the trial court last year, which determined that because HHS had not yet distributed funds under the new rule, states’ claims of irreparable harm were too speculative.

Last March, HHS awarded Title X funds under the new rule. The Ohio Department of Health received just over $7 million, while Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio received $2 million.

On Thursday, the appellate court ruled that Ohio was irreparably harmed by the increase in competition for grant funding. Its funding decreased about 20% once Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio was again eligible for the program.

“The causal link here is not obscure,” wrote Judge Joan Larsen, who was appointed to the Sixth Circuit by Trump.

The lone judge to dissent, Judge Karen Nelson Moore, accused her colleagues on the panel of legislating from the bench. She pointed out that the scheme the majority found “impermissible” — allowing clinics to offer Title X and abortion services in the same location — had been acceptable for nearly 20 years, before the 2019 rule changes.

Further, Nelson Moore wrote, if the language of the Title X statute required the physical separation of Title X and abortion services, the Supreme Court would have ruled as such when it had the opportunity years ago. Instead, the nation’s high court ruled that the statute was so ambiguous as to give deference to the federal agency tasked with implementing Title X — HHS.

“Judges ought not behave like lawmakers, imposing their policy preferences by judicial fiat,” Nelson Moore wrote. “A regulation is not an impermissible interpretation of a statute merely because it is not how a particular couple of judges would have written it.”

The case will return to the trial court to determine whether the 2021 Title X rules must be struck down nationwide.

Read the full opinion below.

Ohio-et-al-v-Becerra-et-al-prelim-inj-rulingDownload

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