The US supreme court will allow the Biden administration to withhold millions of dollars in grant money from the state of Oklahoma over its refusal to provide information about abortion providers to patients who seek it. In an order released on Tuesday, the nine-member court said an injunction filed by the state had been denied in a 6-3 decision. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch were the three who would have granted Oklahoma’s application for relief.
Tuesday’s order reaffirms two previous lower-court decisions in which judges determined a lawsuit filed against the Biden administration by the state of Oklahoma over the taking back of the funds was unlikely to succeed.
The grant at the center of the legal battle – Title X family planning program – is distributed by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In 2021, HHS created a new rule for grant recipients that required them to offer “non-directive”, neutral information about health and family planning options, including on abortion, and to offer people referrals to medical providers, including those who offer abortion services.
Advocate Health, the third largest non-profit health system in the country, has announced it will cancel...
or the first time in decades, public health data shows a sudden and hopeful drop in...
