AMA, Planned Parenthood challenge Trump family-planning rule

Associated Press

The American Medical Association and Planned Parenthood filed a federal court lawsuit today challenging a new Trump administration rule changing criteria for family-planning grant money in ways sought by anti-abortion activists.

The new rule, announced last week by the Department of Health and Human Services, would prohibit family planning clinics funded by the federal Title X program from making abortion referrals – a provision critics denounce as a "gag rule."

Clinics that receive Title X grants also would be barred from sharing office space with abortion providers – a requirement that would in many cases boost costs for providers like Planned Parenthood that offer abortions and other services, including family planning.

The result of the rule, if implemented, "will be a national public health crisis in short order," the lawsuit said.

"Pregnancies that are unintended, and thus riskier, will increase. The number of abortions will also increase. And there will be fewer tests for sexually transmitted infections and cancer screens – putting patients and their partners at great health risk," the lawsuit said.

Planned Parenthood, which operates a nationwide network of health centers, says it will leave the Title X program if the rule is implemented, forgoing an estimated $60 million in annual funding rather than abide by the new restrictions.

Such an exit could have enormous impact: Planned Parenthood serves 1.6 million of the 4 million women who get care through Title X. The program, enacted in 1970, makes family-planning services available to low-income individuals for free or at low cost.

In the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Eugene, Oregon, the AMA and Planned Parenthood asserted that the new rule violates a congressional mandate that patients receiving information about their pregnancies through Title X must receive complete, unbiased information about their options.

They argued the ban on abortion referrals violates this mandate and unconstitutionally infringes on health care providers' responsibilities to their patients.