Attorney General Ken Paxton announced another legal victory for his team this week.
Paxton fought a new rule from the Biden administration regarding Title X that would have required Texas healthcare providers to offer contraceptives to minors without parental consent.
Title X, a federal program administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), was implemented in 1970. It was designed to provide funding for family planning services. It has been a long-standing practice that medical providers accepting Title X funding from HHS did not need parental permission to offer contraceptives to minors.
In 2020, Alexander Deanda, a father in Amarillo represented by former Texas Solicitor General Jonathan Mitchell, challenged HHS’s long-standing regulations, per The Texas Tribune. In his lawsuit, Deanda argued that the provision violated parental rights under the Texas Constitution.
The presiding judge in the federal court sided with Deanda, explicitly ruling that Texas Title X providers must obtain parental consent before prescribing birth control. The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the court’s decision in March 2024.
While that court case was unfolding, the Biden administration issued a new rule specifically stating that Title X providers cannot require the consent of parents to provide birth control services to minors.
Paxton sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in July over the Biden administration’s new rule, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Paxton’s office outlined in a recent press release that this new rule violated state law, as upheld by the recent 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, and was a significant federal overreach of power. He accused the Biden administration of using the Title X program to override state laws governing parental consent.
“The Biden-Harris Administration threatened to withhold taxpayer money to coerce healthcare providers into violating state law and providing contraceptives to children without any parental oversight,” Paxton said.
In response to the filing from Paxton’s office, HHS conceded that it would no longer enforce the controversial contraceptive rule in Texas. Following Biden’s decision to drop the rule enforcement, Paxton filed a notice of dismissal in the case.
“We won a complete and total victory, forcing the outgoing administration to abandon its illegal agenda,” Paxton said in a press release.
The legal win by Paxton’s office ensures that the state’s parental consent laws will remain intact for now, protecting parents’ rights to be involved in all of their children’s medical care decisions.