U.S. Supreme Court rejects Oklahoma’s attempt to restore federal family planning funds

Oklahoma will have to use state money for family planning services at county health clinics after it lost an emergency bid to restore $4.5 million in federal grants because of the state’s refusal to publicize an abortion referral hotline upon request.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday afternoon rejected an emergency application by the state to restore the federal grant. As is typical in emergency applications, the court rejected it without comment, although Justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito would have granted the relief.

Oklahoma argued the federal government was unduly punishing the state when it discontinued the grant in 2023. The state said it could no longer publicize an abortion referral hotline after Oklahoma’s trigger law made abortion illegal in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in June 2022.

The family planning grants cover pregnancy testing, cancer screenings, contraceptives, reproductive health counseling and other services. The program helps 25,000 Oklahomans per year and is especially important at county health departments in rural areas. Oklahoma has been receiving Title X family planning grants from the federal government for more than 50 years.

With the emergency application to restore federal funding over, the case returns to the federal district court in Oklahoma City on other issues surrounding abortion and federal family planning grants.

Attorney General Genter Drummond’s spokeswoman Leslie Berger said in an email that the attorney general was disappointed in the decision but pleased that three justices would have restored the funding.

“We will be exploring our options moving forward,” Berger wrote.

Earlier this year, the state lost its bids for an injunction at the federal district and appellate court levels, leading to the emergency application before the U.S. Supreme Court. As well as its own attorneys, the attorney general’s office contracted with attorneys from Spencer Fane LLP in Oklahoma City and Titus Hillis Reynolds Love PC in Tulsa to help with the lawsuit. The attorney general’s office did not immediately have an estimate on how much it is paying the outside attorneys.

Abortion referrals and Title X rules have varied depending on which party controls the White House. Congress weighs in from time to time with additional requirements in annual spending bills. Since 2000, the regulations have ranged from providing counseling and referrals for abortion to forbidding referrals and now allowing referrals only if requested by clients.

Although other states have banned abortion since the Dobbs decision in 2022, they have continued to follow federal rules to get Title X family planning grants. Oklahoma and Tennessee have been the only states to see their funding discontinued because they refused to include an abortion hotline referral upon request. Last week, a federal appellate court in Ohio ruled against Tennessee in its bid to restore $7 million in federal grant funding for family planning.

Oklahoma continues to provide family planning services at county health departments using appropriated money from the Legislature. But health officials said they prefer to tap federal funds rather than go to the Republican-controlled Legislature each year to ask for appropriations for family planning services, which can be politically fraught debates.

Separately, Oklahoma lawmakers this year put $18 million into the state’s Choosing Childbirth program, which provides money to mostly religious nonprofit crisis pregnancy centers that counsel against abortion. That funding represents a six-fold increase from previous years.

Oklahoma Watch (OklahomaWatch. org) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.