The United States Supreme Court blocked the reinstatement of millions of dollars in federal funding for family planning services in Oklahoma because the state refuses to refer pregnant women to get abortions.
The Biden-Harris Administration stripped funding from the pro-life state after family planning services refused to provide a hotline number for patients to call and receive information on abortion.
Earlier this year, the Department of Health and Human Services and its secretary, Xavier Becerra, were sued by the state, which was seeking a reinstatement of over $4.5 million in family-planning grants. However, on Tuesday, the SCOTUS ruled in favor of the Biden-Harris Administration.
Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch indicated they would have granted the state’s request.
The federal grant program was established in 1970 under Title X of the Public Health Service Act. However, in 2021, the Biden-Harris Administration revised the act, stating that family planning services must provide information to pregnant women about their options to receive "neutral, factual information and non-directive counseling,” including abortion.
The state’s Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond accused the HHS of violating the Weldon Amendment, claiming it punished Oklahoma for refusing to refer women for abortions despite it not being a condition of the funding. The Weldon Amendment bans federal agencies and programs from forcing "any institutional or individual health care entity to discrimination on the basis that the health care entity does not provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.”
In July, in a 2-1 vote, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Biden HHS was allowed to withhold funding, claiming that Oklahoma did not meet the conditions to receive funding from the grant program.
U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued that the Weldon Amendment was not violated because the OSDH is "not protected" under the amendment. She also told the Justices that contrary to Oklahoma’s claims that the funds are a necessary "part of the frontline of health care,” she argued that it was a dispute with "modest, practical stakes."