Summary
On Wednesday May 2, 2018, the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA), the national membership organization that represents publicly funded family planning providers and administrators across the country, filed a lawsuit in Washington DC challenging the Trump administration’s plans to undercut the Title X family planning program. In its case, National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association v. Azar, NFPRHA, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), is asking the US District Court for the District of Columbia to stop the Trump administration from shifting the Title X family planning program away from its intended purpose and important mission of providing voluntary access to high-quality clinical family planning care. Three Planned Parenthoods affiliates have filed a separate lawsuit on similar grounds.
Background
The Title X family planning program was established in 1970 by Congress to respond to President Richard Nixon’s proclamation that “no American woman should be denied access to family planning assistance because of her economic condition.” Since its inception, Title X has been a bedrock, cost-effective health care program helping ensure that poor and low-income individuals have access to critical family planning care including contraception; pelvic exams; sexually transmitted disease testing and treatment; and screening for breast and cervical cancer. After months of delay, the administration released its vision and requirements for applying to participate in the Title X program in late February 2018. The administration outlined that it would heavily favor applicants that emphasize ideologically driven priorities including promoting abstaining from all sex outside of marriage, regardless of the needs and desires of the patient.
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NFPRHA's Position |
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We are fighting in court to prevent irreparable harm to the Title X program, NFPRHA’s members that are Title X providers or administrators, and the four million patients the program serves every year.
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Furthermore, the guidance failed to mention “contraceptive care,” a benchmark of Title X’s public health benefit for the last 48 years, anywhere in the 60-page document.
NFPRHA filed this lawsuit to stop the administration from restructuring Title X in a manner that undermines the program that Congress created to make modern methods of birth control available to all and violates the law governing Title X.
Key Resources
Official Complaint and Case Explainer
Press Statement
Blog Post
Other Resources