Attorney General Rayfield Stands Up to Federal Attacks on Family Planning

Attorney General Dan Rayfield is challenging the federal government to stop a new policy that would cut off family planning funding to states and health clinics unless they agree to a list of political conditions that are illegal, unreasonable, and completely out of touch with families' needs.

AG Rayfield filed the lawsuit today alongside 22 other attorneys general, challenging the 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.

"Family planning funds keep our communities healthy. They catch cancer early, prevent unintended pregnancies, and stop the spread of disease," said Attorney General Rayfield. "These unlawful conditions from the Trump Administration are ripped straight from 'The Handmaid's Tale.' We're not going to let the federal government deny health care to Oregonians because of their narrow, dangerous, and discriminatory political agenda."

In July, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced new conditions for the next five years of Title X funding. For the first time, clinics receiving Title X funds would have to fall in line with a long list of political priorities to keep their money - including steering people away from contraception and toward "natural family planning," pushing patients toward marriage and parenthood instead of giving them neutral advice, cutting diversity and inclusion programs, excluding transgender patients, and even addressing unrelated issues like "crime and disorder." Clinics that don't comply could lose their funding entirely.

Oregon received just under $3 million in Title X funding this year, all of it going to the Oregon Health Authority, which partners with providers and local public health authorities to carry out the state's program. Last year, Title X funds helped tens of thousands of Oregonians access health care they may not have otherwise received.

AG Rayfield and the coalition argue these new conditions break the law in a number of ways: they conflict with what Title X actually requires (offering a full range of birth control options, giving patients honest and unbiased counseling, and serving everyone - including LGBTQ+ patients - without discrimination); HHS never gave the public a chance to weigh in before rolling out the changes, which the law requires; and the conditions are so vague that clinics can't even tell what they'd need to do to comply, which raises constitutional problems with how the federal government can attach strings to funding.

The lawsuit asks the court to block HHS from enforcing these new conditions and let Title X keep operating under its existing rules.

Attorney General Rayfield filed this lawsuit alongside the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai'i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin, as well as the governors of Pennsylvania and Kentucky.