By Andrew Chung
(Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court allowed on Tuesday President Joe Biden’s administration to cut $4.5 million in federal funding for family planning projects in Oklahoma after the Republican-led state stopped referrals to pregnancy counseling that could provide information about abortion.
The justices denied Oklahoma’s request to block the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from terminating the funding for 2024 while the state appeals a lower court’s decision siding with the administration’s action to cut the grant.
The dispute involves Oklahoma’s refusal to provide abortion referrals as required for grants under a 1970 law known as Title X of the Public Health Service Act to help states and non-profit entities provide a broad range of family planning options.
A 2021 federal rule requires abortion referrals that may provide basic factual and contact information for medical providers but no other action such as making an appointment. Biden’s administration also noted that federal law protects those with religious objections from referring for abortions.
A near-total abortion ban took effect in Oklahoma after the Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the landmark 1973 ruling Roe v. Wade that had legalized abortion nationwide.
The state’s health department then halted abortion referrals and rejected federal officials’ alternative proposal to provide patients with a national hotline to call to receive “nondirective counseling and referral information.”
After the administration cut Oklahoma’s grant, the state sued, arguing that the termination violated limits under the U.S. Constitution on how Congress attaches conditions to federal funds.
In July the Denver, Colorado-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to block the action, prompting the state to seek the Supreme Court’s intervention.
Biden’s administration urged the justices to reject Oklahoma’s argument, saying the state “sought and accepted a grant with full knowledge that it was agreeing to comply with counseling and referral requirements that have governed the Title X program for most of its 54-year history.”
The Supreme Court had previously agreed to hear a dispute over a 2019 Title X regulation implemented under Republican former President Donald Trump that barred funds for abortion referrals, but dismissed the matter after Biden, who defeated Trump in the 2020 election, promised to reverse course.
(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Scott Malone and Stephen Coates)
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