Federal Funds Withheld as Supreme Court Sides Against Oklahoma in Abortion Referral Case

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected Oklahoma’s emergency appeal seeking to restore a $4.5 million grant for family planning services in an ongoing dispute over the state’s refusal to refer pregnant women to a nationwide hotline that provides information about abortion and other options.

The brief 6-3 order did not detail the court’s reasoning, as is typical, but says Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch would have sided with Oklahoma.

Lower courts had ruled that the federal Health and Human Services Department’s decision to cut off Oklahoma from the funds did not violate federal law.

The case stems from a dispute over state abortion restrictions and federal grants provided under a family planning program known as Title X that has only grown more heated since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and many Republican-led states outlawed abortion.

Clinics cannot use federal family planning money to pay for abortions, but they must offer information about abortion at the patient’s request, under the federal regulation at issue.

Oklahoma argues that it can’t comply with a requirement to provide abortion counseling and referrals because the state’s abortion ban makes it a crime for “any person to advise or procure an abortion for any woman.”

The administration said it offered an accommodation that would allow referrals to the national hotline, but the state rejected that as insufficient. The federal government then cut off the state’s Title X funds.

In 2021, the Biden administration reversed a ban on abortion referrals by clinics that accept Title X funds. The restriction was initially enacted during the Donald Trump administration in 2019, but the policy has swung back and forth for years, depending upon who is in the White House.

Tennessee is pursuing a similar lawsuit that remains in the lower courts. Oklahoma and 10 other states also are mounting a separate challenge to the federal regulation.

Oklahoma says it distributes the money to around 70 city and county health departments for family planning, infertility help and services for adolescents. For rural communities especially, the government-run health facilities can be “the only access points for critical preventative services for tens or even hundreds of miles,” Oklahoma said in its Supreme Court filing.