The American Civil Liberties Union dropped its federal lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services on Jan. 13 after the Trump administration agreed to restore $27.5 million in Title X family planning grants it had withheld since last spring. According to the ACLU, the funding suspension had left 865 family planning service sites unable to provide services to an estimated 842,000 patients across nearly two dozen states.
The resolution ends one legal battle over the administration’s anti-DEI enforcement but leaves unresolved a wider conflict over the Title X program, which funds contraception, cancer screenings, and other preventive care primarily for low-income women. ACLU attorneys said they expect the administration to mount further challenges to reproductive health services.
The funding pause
Last year, the ACLU sued HHS after federal officials alerted 16 organizations, including Planned Parenthood affiliates, that the department was pausing $27.5 million to investigate whether they were complying with the law. HHS did not specify at the time which laws or executive orders the groups were suspected of violating.
In a Dec. 19 letter to the organizations, HHS officials cited “federal civil rights laws” and stated the groups had taken actions to show they were in compliance. The letter reminded the organizations of their “ongoing obligation to comply with all terms of the award, including by not engaging in any unlawful diversity, equity or inclusion-related discrimination in violation of such laws.”
Who was affected
According to the ACLU, when HHS withheld 22 federal Title X grants last spring, 865 family planning service sites were unable to provide services to an estimated 842,000 patients across nearly two dozen states.
The Title X program provides services mainly to low-income women, many of them from minority communities. Federal law prohibits taxpayer dollars from paying for most abortions. Clinics in the program offer birth control, cancer screenings, STI testing, and other preventive services.
Response from the ACLU
“We should never have had to sue to protect essential health care like cancer screenings, STI tests, and birth control,” said Arthur Spitzer, senior counsel at the ACLU of the District of Columbia. “Restoring funding is a victory, but the larger fight to protect everyone’s reproductive freedom continues.”
Brigitte Amiri, deputy director of the Reproductive Freedom Project at the ACLU, said in a statement that while funding has been restored, “we know that the Trump administration will continue to attack reproductive freedom, and the ACLU will be ready to use every lever we have to fight those attacks and defend the Title X program.”
An email seeking comment to HHS had not received a response as of Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.
Broader context
Since taking office, Trump has issued executive orders targeting programs that consider race in any way, some of which have been put on hold by judges. Republicans have long opposed the hundreds of millions of dollars that flow annually under the Title X program to Planned Parenthood and its clinics.