Attorney General Ford Sues to Protect Title X Family Planning Health Care Funding for Nevada Communities

Carson City, NV - Today, Attorney General Aaron D. Ford announced he has sued to block a new federal policy that threatens to strip federal family planning funding from states and providers unless they meet a variety of unlawful conditions. The lawsuit, filed today by Attorney General Ford and 22 other states in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, challenges new conditions on Title X funds, which support reproductive health care, family planning, cancer screenings and other critical preventive care for millions of Americans nationwide. The new conditions will penalize states and providers that refuse to abandon nondiscrimination initiatives or conform their Title X programs to the administration's ideological vision of family planning. The states are asking the court to block the unlawful and discriminatory conditions and protect Americans' access to affordable, high-quality health care.

"For many Nevadans, Title X is how they access basic, essential health care, from birth control and cancer screenings to testing and other preventive services," said Attorney General Ford. "People should be able to get the care they need without politics getting in the way. These new conditions put that care at risk for families and communities across our state, and I will continue fighting to protect Nevadans' access to affordable, quality health care."

Title X is the only federal grant program dedicated specifically to family planning and related preventive health services. For more than 50 years, Title X has helped millions of low-income patients access contraception, cancer screenings, sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment, pregnancy testing and counseling and other preventive health care.

In July, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published a new funding notice for the next five-year grant cycle that, for the first time, requires applicants to align their programs with a sweeping set of political priorities as a condition of receiving or keeping federal funds. The priorities include eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion practices; excluding and stigmatizing transgender people; discouraging the use of contraception in favor of natural family planning; requiring clinics to counsel all patients toward marriage and parenthood rather than providing neutral, patient-centered guidance; and complying with unrelated political priorities like "ending crime and disorder on America's streets." Providers who don't comply risk losing their funding altogether.

The Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health has received Title X funding since the 1970s. In Nevada, approximately $3 million in FY 2026 Title X funding supports state and local jurisdictions, including 13 community clinics in nine rural counties. According to 2022 data, 45% of family planning visits to clinics supported by the program served patients living below the federal poverty line, while 72% served patients with incomes below 250% of the federal poverty line.

Attorney General Ford and the coalition argue that the new HHS conditions conflict with Title X's governing statute and regulations, which require providers to offer a broad range of contraceptive methods, provide nondirective counseling, and serve all patients, including LGBTQ+ individuals, in an inclusive and nondiscriminatory manner. The states also argue that HHS unlawfully imposed the new conditions without the notice-and-comment process required under the Administrative Procedure Act. Additionally, the coalition argues that the conditions are so vague that providers cannot reasonably determine what compliance requires, in violation of the Constitution's Spending Clause, which limits the government's ability to attach unclear or unrelated strings to federal funding.

The coalition is asking the court to declare the administration's new political conditions unlawful, block HHS from enforcing them, and preserve access to Title X funding for state health agencies and other qualified providers under the program's existing, longstanding rules.

Joining Attorney General Ford in filing this lawsuit, which was led by the attorneys general of New York, Maryland, and Massachusetts, are the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin, as well as the governors of Pennsylvania and Kentucky.

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