Attorney General Jennifer Davenport has joined a multistate lawsuit seeking to stop the Trump administration from attaching new conditions to federal funding for family-planning and preventive healthcare services.
The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland, challenges requirements announced by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in July for the next five-year cycle of Title X grants.
Title X provides federal funding for contraception, cancer screenings, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy testing and counseling, and other preventive services, primarily for low-income patients. It is the federal government’s only grant program devoted specifically to family planning and related care.
“The most intimate, consequential healthcare decisions of your life should not be dictated by politics, or by how much money you have in your wallet,” said Davenport. “The Trump Administration is illegally intruding into the lives of New Jersey families in ways that will make healthcare even more expensive. We cannot accept that.”
According to the states, the new funding standards would pressure grant recipients to discourage contraception, treat transgender patients differently, and steer patients toward marriage and parenthood instead of offering neutral counseling based on individual needs. Providers that fail to follow the conditions could lose their federal funding.
The coalition argues that the requirements are inconsistent with the law and regulations governing Title X, which call for access to a range of contraceptive options, individualized counseling, and nondiscriminatory treatment of patients, including LGBTQ+ individuals.
The lawsuit also alleges that HHS bypassed the public notice-and-comment procedure required under the Administrative Procedure Act. The states contend that some of the conditions are too ambiguous to give healthcare providers clear guidance about how to comply.
The coalition is asking the court to invalidate the new requirements and prevent HHS from enforcing them while preserving funding under the program’s previous rules.
New York, Maryland and Massachusetts are leading the case. New Jersey is joined by 19 other states, along with the governors of Pennsylvania and Kentucky.