Connecticut Attorney General William Tong joined a multistate lawsuit opposing the federal Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) new guidelines for family planning clinic grants.
The HHS offers Title X grants to family planning clinics. Clinics who receive these grants offer family planning counseling, contraceptives, screening for sexually transmitted infections and HIV, basic support for infertility, and certain types of cancer screenings, among other services.
Earlier this year, the HHS officials updated their standards to incorporate new criteria for what services clinics need to offer, what they should be emphasizing in their care, and how clinics are managed. In July, those standards were finalized when HHS published a new funding notice for the upcoming five-year grant cycle.
The lawsuit signed by Tong and 22 other attorneys general described these new standards as “conditions that undermine the program’s purpose and conflict with the governing statute and regulations.”
The new standards impact a wide range of functions. On the healthcare side, clinic employees will need to emphasize “fertility-awareness–based methods (often referred to as natural family planning),” over hormonal birth control, and counseling at the clinics should encourage marriage and parenthood. Clinics also need to act in accordance with existing federal policy, which, as of January, only recognizes two sexes and prohibits federally funded healthcare providers from administering hormonal and surgical treatment for transgender people under the age of 19. On the administrative side, recipients are mandated to “end diversity, equity, and inclusion policy and practices” and to advance other priorities, such as caring for people with Long COVID and understanding autism.
“Donald Trump wants doctors and clinics to pass a MAGA purity test before they can treat patients and save lives,” Tong said in a press release about the lawsuit. “This is another ridiculous, unlawful and unnecessary move by this President to make us sicker and poorer, and we’re suing to stop it.”
There are 18 Title X clinics in Connecticut. Twelve of them are Planned Parenthoods, and the rest are Cornell Scott-Hill Health Centers.
These clinics receive around $2.3 million a year in funding from Title X grants, according to Tong’s press release. They serve thousands of people, including many low-income patients.
“The new conditions will penalize states and providers that refuse to abandon nondiscrimination initiatives or conform their Title X programs to the administration’s ideological vision of family planning,” the press release said. “The states are asking the court to block the unlawful and discriminatory conditions and protect Americans’ access to affordable, high-quality health care.”
Last legislative session, the state established a Safe Harbor Fund, which gives out grants to cover certain costs for people who travel across state lines to abortion or gender-affirming care in Connecticut. The fund is administered by the state, but is privately funded. The fund opened on July 1 of this year.
Was this article helpful?
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
