The Supreme Court on Tuesday authorized the Biden administration to withhold federal family planning funds to the state of Oklahoma. controversy over abortion.
The administration tried to withhold funds because Oklahoma refused to provide a hotline number that could provide neutral information about abortion to patients.
Summary judgment denying state’s emergency petition noted that three of the six conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch — dissented. The court did not explain the reason for its decision.
Under the federal family planning law in question, known as Title X, public funding cannot be used for abortion. But the Biden administration argues that it does not prohibit the government from requiring providers to provide patients with access to relevant information.
When President Joe Biden took office in 2021, his administration issued a regulation similar to rules issued by previous administrations that required states to provide factual information to pregnant patients about issues such as prenatal care, adoption and abortion.
In addition to requiring providers to provide “non-directive counseling” to pregnant women, it also requires referrals upon request.
The new regulation replaced a Trump administration rule that banned access to any abortion.
In 2022, Oklahoma received funding after complying with the rule, but the Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 abortion rights decision, Roe v. After its Wade decision, the state changed course.
Oklahoma now bans abortion except when the woman’s life is in danger and has a law that makes it a crime to encourage someone to have an abortion.
At first, the state agreed to provide a hotline number to patients seeking abortion information as a compromise, but later refused.
Then $4.5 million in state funding for 2023 was suspended.
Oklahoma had already joined the challenge to the administration’s regulation, but filed a separate lawsuit seeking access to Title X funding.
A federal judge in Oklahoma ruled against the state, refusing to require the Biden administration to pay. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver reached the same conclusion, saying that informing patients about the hotline does not constitute a request for an abortion.
The state then appealed to the Supreme Court to gain access to future funding.
The state’s lawyers argue, in part, that the Department of Health and Human Services does not have the authority to impose new conditions on funding required under Title X.
The funding is used to provide “critical public health services” across the state, they added in court documents.
“Depriving these communities of Title X services would be devastating,” they said.
Attorney General Elizabeth Prelogar, representing the Biden administration, wrote in a filing with the court that Title X is now in effect in all 50 states.
“Congress has regularly conditioned federal grants on compliance with requirements contained in agency regulations, and this court has repeatedly upheld such requirements,” he said.