After the Biden administration bypassed the State of Tennessee and decided to give the state’s Title X funding directly to Planned Parenthood in September, Tennessee’s attorney general is taking action.
“We are suing to stop the federal government from playing politics with the health of Tennessee women,” Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said in a statement posted to X, formerly Twitter. “Our lawsuit is necessary to ensure that Tennessee can continue its 50-year track record of successfully providing these public health services to its neediest populations.”
After the Human Life Protection Act took effect in August of 2022, ending the practice of abortion in Tennessee, the state was denied Title X funding from the federal government because healthcare clinics are no longer allowed to suggest or complete abortion procedures.
Abortion became illegal in Tennessee after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. However, there is an exception for “situations where the abortion is necessary to prevent the death of pregnant women or prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of major bodily function.”
The state said its Title X funding “played a critical role in ensuring access to a broad range of family planning and preventive health services” and that the Biden administration’s decision was purely punitive.
Skrmetti’s complaint, which was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, says the federal government’s actions are unconstitutional.
“This case involves the federal government’s latest effort to coerce States into carrying out pro-abortion policy in violation of statutory, constitutional, and administrative-law limits,” the complaint says.
It also says that Title X prohibits the federal government from giving taxpayer funds to healthcare centers that provide abortions.
“Through Title X, [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] grants Tennessee and other entities substantial funding to provide counseling and family planning services—primarily to individuals who cannot otherwise afford care. But from the start, Title X has specified that no granted funds can flow to ‘programs where abortion is a method of family planning,'” according to the complaint.
“HHS’s actions make clear that it has no intention of meaningfully considering Tennessee’s appeal or preserving HHS and Tennessee’s fifty-year Title X partnership,” the lawsuit says. “Rather, HHS apparently values sending a pro-abortion message more than providing vital family planning services to thousands of vulnerable women and families across Tennessee.”
The complaint demands that the federal government restore Tennessee’s Title X funding retroactively to March.
It has been a busy week for Skrmetti, who earlier this week, along with more than 40 other state attorneys general, filed a lawsuit against Meta, owner of Instagram, for what it says are intentionally addictive practices that are harmful to the mental health of users.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on X / Twitter.
