24 States Fight Biden’s Decision to Yank Oklahoma’s Health Care Funds Because It’s Pro-Life
A group of 24 states is fighting a decision by Joe Biden to yank Oklahoma’s health care funds just because it’s pro-life.
Oklahoma has filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration for denying it federal health care funds because it refuses to use them to fund abortions. And almost half the states in the nation are coming to its defense.
As LifeNews reported previously, pro-life states’ efforts to expand essential health care to women and families are being thwarted by the very same people who accuse these states of failing to provide it. First, it was Texas, and then Oklahoma was denied funding to expand medical care to low-income women by Joe Biden’s administration.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rescinded a $4.5 million Title X grant to the Oklahoma State Department of Health to provide family planning services, such as birth control, counseling, STI testing and treatment, and other health services, to low-income individuals.
In May, HHS accused Oklahoma of being “out of compliance” with the family planning program and therefore ineligible for the grant money.
The reason: abortion.
Oklahoma protects unborn babies by banning elective abortions and taxpayer funding for abortions. But to receive the grant money, the Biden administration now requires states to promote abortions through abortion referrals.
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Oklahoma is fighting back with its lawsuit and 24 states are right behind it.
Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch led a 24-State coalition in filing an amicus brief in the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, supporting Oklahoma’s defense of its Title X-funded family health program.
“Oklahoma spent four decades serving families with a wide variety of important family health services,” said Attorney General Lynn Fitch, “and the Biden Administration’s decision to terminate funding for those services puts women, children, and families at risk across the State. Once again, the Biden Administration is putting politics over people. The President is openly flouting State and federal law, without regard for the very real-life consequences of his actions.”
On June 27, 2023, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) terminated Oklahoma’s Title X funding because the State would not refer for abortions. Oklahoma’s Health Department had received this funding for 40 years and used it to provide family health services, including pregnancy testing and prevention, depression screening, and breast exams and cancer screening. Oklahoma provided these clinical and educational services through 87 county health sites and 8 contract agency sites in 70 of the State’s 77 counties.
As the Attorneys General state in their brief, “[T]he people of Oklahoma have decided generally to restrict elective abortions. They have also decided that no person in the State may be required to perform or participate in such abortions. Acting through their elected representatives, Oklahomans have decided that this approach appropriately balances the ‘legitimate interests’ in ‘prenatal life,’ ‘maternal health and safety,’ the ‘integrity of the medical profession,’ and more. Not all States balance (or view) the competing interests this way, but that is how the people of Oklahoma see them. And in our constitutional system, the decision on this hard issue is theirs.” (citations omitted)
The Attorneys General further note, “Because questions on abortion are so important, it is critical that the people decide them. Yet HHS seeks to rob the people of power to decide these questions for themselves by demanding, on pain of massive financial loss, that Oklahoma refer for abortions that defy the will of its people. That state of affairs departs from our constitutional order, which leaves the most important matters to the people.”
While Oklahoma’s appeal of HHS’s funding termination was pending, HHS announced a redirection of their funds to the out-of-state Missouri Family Health Council, which in turn awarded the bulk of the $4.5 million stripped from Oklahoma to Planned Parenthood Great Plains for its four centers in Oklahoma, which, according to their website, will provide, amongst other services, abortion referrals to their clinics in Kansas and gender-affirming care. HHS similarly terminated Tennessee’s fifty-year program and redirected its funds to the Virginia League for Planned Parenthood and its affiliates.
The Attorneys General of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming joined General Fitch in filing the amicus brief in Oklahoma v. HHS, which can be found here.
Atty General Fitch led a 23-state amicus brief in support of Tennessee’s Title X program earlier this month, as well.
Oklahoma State Attorney General Gentner Drummond said the Biden administration “is intent on punishing Oklahoma because we do not share its liberal philosophy.”
“It is patently discriminatory to deny Oklahoma these critical funds, particularly when federal law makes it clear that Title X cannot be used for abortion,” he said.
“I will continue to fight against federal overreach in all forms,” he added.
After Biden withdrew the funds, “HHS has chosen to prioritize abortion instead of prioritizing actual health care,” federal lawmakers from Oklahoma responded Thursday in a letter to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra.
The pro-life lawmakers said the Title X grants provide health care to about 30,000 people every year in Oklahoma, and revoking the funds puts their health at risk. Now, innocent people are “caught in the crossfire of HHS’ continued work to promote abortion,” they told the federal agency, according to The Federalist.
The letter, signed by U.S. Sens. James Lankford and Markwayne Mullin, and U.S. Reps. Josh Brecheen, Stephanie Bice, Kevin Hern, Frank Lucas and Tom Cole, demanded that HHS restore the funds and help Oklahomans access health care.
What’s more, they said the Biden administration based its defunding decision on its own “willfully ignorant” misinterpretation of federal law.
Title X funds are not supposed to be used for abortions. The program provides family planning services to low-income individuals, and the law states that grants may not be used “where abortion is a method of family planning.” In 2021, however, the Biden administration implemented a new rule that contradicts the law and requires Title X recipients to refer for abortions. A dozen states sued to challenge the pro-abortion rule, but it remains in effect.
Oklahoma lawmakers said their low-income residents shouldn’t be denied health care because their state protects unborn babies’ lives.
“Abortion is not family planning; it is family destruction,” they told Becerra. “Every abortion takes an unborn child’s life. Oklahoma’s laws protect women and unborn children from the violence of abortion in the interest of promoting families, keeping Oklahomans safe, and protecting life.”
Abortion activists and Democrats have been accusing pro-life states of providing inadequate health care and driving away doctors, but these very same people are trying to stop pro-life states from providing better health care to their residents.
Texas is another example. In 2022, the Biden administration denied a bipartisan request from the Texas Legislature to expand Medicaid for mothers of newborns.
Texas was the first state to protect unborn babies by banning most abortions in 2021. Now, the state bans all elective abortions, and pro-life advocates and lawmakers are working to expand support services for families in need.
Essential health care should be an issue that Republicans and Democrats, pro-life and pro-abortion activists can work together on. But the Biden administration is playing politics with people’s lives instead.
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