A federal district judge in Texas has ruled that the Biden administration’s demand that clinics receiving federal taxpayer funds provide birth control to minors without notifying the parents infringes upon parental rights.
The program in question, called Title X, is a federal medical grant mechanism instituted in 1970 that supplies funding “to public and nonprofit agencies for family planning services, research, and training,” according to the Congressional Research Service.
As the administration of President Joe Biden came into power, Texas father Alexander Deanda filed suit claiming that “the federal government, however, is subverting these constitutional and statutory rights in its Title X program, which funds projects that distribute contraception and family-planning services to minors without parental notification or consent.”
The suit contended that the shifting interpretation ran in contradiction to the Texas Family Code, which “gives parents the right to consent to their child’s medical and dental care, and psychiatric, psychological, and surgical treatment.”
Furthermore, Deanda suggested that the provision of birth control to his daughters without his consent would infringe upon his religious beliefs and rights as a parent.
“Mr. Deanda is a Christian, and he is raising each of his daughters in accordance with Christian teaching on matters of sexuality, which requires unmarried children to practice abstinence and refrain from sexual intercourse until marriage,” the legal complaint explained.
After the initial suit was filed, Xavier Becerra, the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) appointed by President Biden, formally asserted that Title X would require “adolescent confidentiality,” and that projects funded by Title X required keeping parents in the dark.
“Title X projects may not require consent of parents or guardians for the provision of services to minors, nor can any Title X project staff notify a parent or guardian before or after a minor has requested and/or received Title X family planning services,” according to the new final rule issued by HHS in 2021.
Becerra, responding to the suit, claimed that the “Plaintiff fails to overcome the longstanding and universal understanding that the availability of confidential services under Title X precludes parental consent requirements.”
Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, nominated by President Donald Trump in 2018, disagreed, however, and sided with Deanda that the federal assertion of adolescent confidentiality infringed upon parental rights.
Kacsmaryk ruled that “the Defendants’ administration of the Title X program violates Plaintiff’s rights,” suggesting that nothing in the federal statute “purports to preempt state laws requiring parental consent or notification before distributing contraceptive drugs or devices to minors.”
Kacsmaryk further claimed that the Biden administration’s application of the program “violates Plaintiff’s fundamental right to control and direct the upbringing of his minor children, which is protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, as protected by the Supreme Court of the United States.”
Although an appeal has yet to be announced, it is expected that the government will file one.