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PP loses in court challenging Title X focus on teen sexual abstinence

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A federal judge has thrown out a legal challenge filed against the Trump administration by Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups challenging proposed changes to Title X grant funding for low-income family planning programs that critics say prioritize faith-based groups and organizations that promote sexual abstinence.

On Monday, United States District Court Judge Trevor McFadden in Washington, D.C. ruled against three Planned Parenthood groups and the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association by deciding that the courts have no place in reviewing “substantive objections to a non-final agency action” and can’t “require formal rulemaking for a change in agency procedure.”

The ruling comes as the organizations filed separate lawsuits earlier this year after the administration proposed changes to the federal Title X family planning grant program that establishes new guidelines for how the Department of Health and Human Services reviews applications for grant funding under Title X. At least $260 million is available to fund Title X grant projects.

Although the next funding cycle for Title X programs begins in September, left-leaning activists fear that the administration’s focus on sexual risk avoidance initiatives over teen pregnancy prevention initiatives supported by the Obama administration will open the door for more Title X funding to go to crisis pregnancy centers and abstinence-only providers while groups like Planned Parenthood will lose funding.

According to the proposed changes, family planning grants would still provide a broad range of “acceptable and effective family planning methods and related preventive health services.” Those services include natural family planning methods, infertility services, services for adolescents, highly effective contraceptive methods, breast and cervical cancer screening and prevention services, STD and HIV prevention education, counseling, testing, and referral. It will also provide adolescent abstinence counseling.

However, the grant opportunity announcement specifically states that the “range of services does not include abortion as a method of family planning.”

“None of the funds appropriated under this title shall be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning,” the opportunity announcement states.

Planned Parenthood receives over $500 million in tax dollars each year through Medicaid funding and Title X grants. Conservatives have long called for Planned Parenthood to be stripped of its federal funding, as the Hyde Amendment prevents tax dollars from being used to fund abortions. (Excerpted from The Christian Post, reporting by Samuel Smith.)

Texas law requiring burial of aborted babies 

Pray for the federal judge who is hearing this challenge to the Texas law requiring proper burial for aborted babies. It really matters who serves in our courts and what they believe! Download our free Special Report Prayer Guide to understand and pray more effectively about our courts.

“A federal judge in San Antonio is hearing testimony this week on a state law requiring abortion providers to bury or cremate the remains of fetuses rather than incinerating or dumping them in a landfill.

Abortion providers argue the law puts clinics in danger of closing because there is only one known business willing to pick up and properly dispose of fetal remains. Pro-life advocates say it’s about providing dignity for the aborted fetuses.

“The state is implementing this policy to say we’re not prohibiting the abortions on this policy, we’re not stopping them, we are requiring that their bodies be handled with respect and dignity,” says John Seago with Texas Right to Life. “That’s reasonable and very similar to how we handle human remains for any individual after birth.”

Under the state law, health centers that provide care to pregnant woman must ensure that fetal tissue is buried or cremated — with the ashes buried or appropriately scattered — after an abortion or a miscarriage-related procedure.

“It’s not only the cost in terms of dollars and cents, but also the cost of having personnel to provide the services and also to have the burial services at the ready,” says Josh Blackman with South Texas College of Law Houston.

A federal judge already blocked the law from going into effect, but Blackman believes it will be upheld this time around.

“Whether this goes to the Supreme Court, that’s a new variable because we might be facing a more conservative court than we were before.” (Source: IHeart.com.)