Denver Newsroom, Feb 9, 2022 / 16:00 pm
Though 12 states have filed a legal challenge to a Biden administration rule that allows clinics that refer for abortions to receive federal family planning funds, a federal court has said the rule can stay in place pending the outcome of the lawsuit.
The lawsuit was brought by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, joined by attorneys general of Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and West Virginia, the Associated Press reports. Not all of these states take Title X funding.
On Feb. 8, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati denied the 12 states’ request to halt the Biden administration’s new rule, on the grounds that they failed to prove they would be irreparably damaged by the rule taking effect.
The lawsuit seeks to re-instate the Trump administration’s Protect Life Rule on Title X funding. The rule was intended to serve as a firewall between family planning clinics and abortion services, Yost said. The suit argued that the Biden administration rule will “subsidize abortion.”