Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Photo by Ken Paxton, via Facebook.
Texas Border Businesses
AUSTIN – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Secretary Xavier Becerra, and other members of the Biden Administration for adopting rules that aim to override parents’ state-law rights to consent to their children’s medical care.
Title X of the federal Public Health Service Act has provided grants to increase the availability of “comprehensive voluntary family planning services” for over 50 years. HHS distributes these federally funded grants, but organizations that receive the funds must comply with relevant state laws. Previously, a unanimous panel of a federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that Title X projects must comply with Texas parental consent laws when distributing prescription contraceptives to minors.
However, the Biden Administration’s surrogacy rule contradicts this binding legal precedent by prohibiting Title X projects from obtaining parental consent before providing contraception to minors, despite being required by Texas law and Fifth Circuit precedent. Attorney General Paxton’s lawsuit asks that the Court strike down this clearly unlawful surrogacy rule and issue a permanent injunction against its continued enforcement.
“By attempting to force health care providers in Texas to provide contraception to children without parental consent, the Biden Administration continues to demonstrate that it will do whatever it takes to implement its radical agenda, even to destroy the Constitution and violate the law,” Attorney General Paxton said. “Federal courts have already blocked their attacks on parental rights, and I will ensure that we block them again.”
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