FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 23, 2019
Contact: Audrey Sandusky, asandusky@nfprha.org, 202-344-5805

Ninth Circuit Court Hears Oral Argument in Lawsuit against Administration’s Unlawful Title X Program Rule

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, an en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral argument in the lawsuit brought by the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA), the ACLU, Essential Access Health, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and others against the Trump administration’s Title X family planning rule. The following is a statement from Clare Coleman, President & CEO of NFPRHA:

“Today NFPRHA, the ACLU, and its partners made a compelling case before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that the administration’s unlawful Title X rule is having a devastating impact on poor and low-income people across the United States.

“The administration’s direct attack on the gold standard family planning program demonstrates it prioritizes ideology over public health and disrespects the most vulnerable patients’ health care needs. For Title X family planning providers, the rule forces an impossible decision: stay and sacrifice adhering to widely adopted federal medical standards of care within the program, or leave and forgo critical funding support, jeopardizing the ability to provide critical health care services patients need. It’s unconscionable that the administration is playing politics with patients’ lives and providers’ livelihoods.

“The family planning safety net in this country and its patients are in dire need of judicial relief from the rule. Already, regulation changes are reverberating in communities across the country, leaving patients in the dark on how to access the preventive health care they need.

“We are hopeful that the Ninth Circuit will do what’s in the best interest of public health and block this rule so that patients can continue to seek high-quality, confidential, compassionate family planning care from providers they know and trust.”

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NFPRHA is a membership organization representing publicly funded family planning providers and administrators nationwide. NFPRHA advances and elevates the importance of family planning in the nation’s health care system and promotes and supports the work of family planning providers and administrators, especially those in the safety net. For more information, visit nationalfamilyplanning.org.