Image Credit: Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi
By Anita Wadhwani [The Tennessee Lookout -CC BY-NC-ND 4.0] –
Tennessee has lost a legal bid to regain $7 million in annual family planning funding while it challenges a federal rule that requires states to tell pregnant patients about all their options, including abortion.
The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday ruled Tennessee is unlikely to succeed in challenging a decision by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to axe the state’s funding connected to family planning.
The federal agency’s decision came after Tennessee Department of Health officials said they would provide patients information only about “all options that are legal in the State of Tennessee,” where abortion has largely been outlawed since 2022.
The court ruled that the state’s decision is contrary to rules the federal agency is entitled to make.
The court noted that Tennessee had the option of rejecting federal funding entirely or to accept an alternative proposal put forward by the federal government to offer patients a toll free hotline number to access information about abortion.
“Tennessee was free to voluntarily relinquish the grants for any reason, especially if it determined that the requirements would violate state laws,” the court wrote. “Instead Tennessee decided to accept the grant, subject to the (rule’s) counseling and referral requirements.”
A spokesperson for Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said via email Tuesday that the office was “reviewing the opinion and considering next steps.”
The appeals court shot down a series of legal arguments made by attorneys with the Tennessee Attorney General’s office, including that the rules “infringes on Tennessee’s state sovereignty” and usurped Congress’s authority to set such rules, instead of the agency.
Judges on the 6th circuit said in their decision that Tennessee could not use its criminal abortion law to “dictate eligibility requirements” for the Title X funding.
The court also ruled that “there is no indication that the non-directive options for counseling and the neutral information required by the rule are not ‘allowable under state law,” noting the abortion ban does not address counseling.
“Though Tennessee law prohibits a person from performing an abortion, the law ‘contains no language whatsoever related to counseling or referrals.’” the court wrote.
The court also stated that Tennessee has not suffered from the loss of funding; the Tennessee Legislature approved state funding to replace the lost federal dollars.
A partial dissent by Judge Kethledge Gibbons argued that the federal rule requiring neutral information and referrals about abortion may, itself, violate federal law. Gibbons concurred with the rest of the opinion.
The decision leaves the state’s lawsuit, filed in October 2023, to wind its way through federal court in Nashville.
One Response
Lucifer’s filthy lucre from lucifer’s feds.