ACLU Response to Ninth Circuit Ruling on Title X Family Planning Program

SAN FRANCISCO — The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Trump administration policy that is destroying the Title X family planning program.

The rule prohibits family planning clinics — which previously served as the source of health care for more than four million low-income people every year — from providing Title X patients with referrals for abortion care and imposes other onerous requirements that have resulted in the widespread loss of critical Title X providers.

The Eastern District of Washington had preliminarily blocked the Trump administration’s rules, but the Ninth Circuit overturned that decision and issued a ruling on the merits.

“We are deeply disappointed that today’s decision allows the Trump administration to once again make it harder and harder for people to get the health care they need, including family planning care,” said Ruth Harlow, senior staff attorney at the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, who argued the case before the Ninth Circuit. “We are looking at any further options to rescue the Title X program and to restore the critical care it has provided to marginalized patients for almost five decades.”

The ACLU’s lawsuit was brought on behalf of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association and Cedar River Clinics.