The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for the Biden administration to strip millions of health care dollars from Oklahoma over its refusal to refer patients for abortions – a practice the state says would be at odds with its strict ban on terminating pregnancies.
Last year, the Biden administration diverted $4.5 million from Oklahoma’s family planning program, which primarily serves low-income or uninsured patients.
In challenging that decision, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond told the Supreme Court that state health-care organizations cannot be punished for failing to advise patients about ending their pregnancies. The Health and Human Services Department, the state said, is illegally imposing conditions on funding that are not specified in the half-century-old nationwide family planning program known as Title X.
After the Supreme Court eliminated the nationwide right to abortion in 2022, Oklahoma was one of more than a dozen states to broadly prohibit the procedure. The state also makes it a crime for any person to try to persuade a woman to terminate a pregnancy or to procure an abortion for any woman.
Circuit upheld the federal government’s right to deny the funding. A divided three-judge panel noted that the Health and Human Services Department had told the state it could meet its obligation by giving patients a phone number for a national hotline that provides neutral information about pregnancy options, including abortion.
The state then asked the Supreme Court to intervene, seeking action by Aug. 30 to stop the Biden administration from again withholding the health-care funding.
As is typical in emergency orders, the Supreme Court majority did not explain its reasons for refusing Oklahoma’s request to immediately intervene. Conservative justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito, Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch said they would have granted the state’s request.
more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/09/03/oklahoma-abortion-funding-supreme-court-title-x/
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