A federal appeals court on Monday denied Tennessee an injunction to keep federal family-planning funds flowing during a dispute over abortion.
Two judges on a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit agreed with a lower court “that Tennessee does not have a strong likelihood of succeeding on the merits of its claim.”
Tennessee sought the injunction to prevent the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from withholding Title X family-planning funds over Tennessee’s stance on abortion referrals.
A 2021 HHS rule requires Title X recipient states to make abortion referrals when requested by a patient.
HHS withheld the funds because Tennessee, which banned most abortions after Roe v. Wade‘s reversal, refused to make referrals for abortions when requested if Tennessee law forbade those abortions.
Tennessee challenged HHS’s withholding of funds, arguing HHS violated the U.S. Constitution’s Spending Clause and the Administrative Procedures Act (APA).
Tennessee argued the withholding violated the Spending Clause, which gives Congress the power to “lay and collect Taxes . . . to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.”
Tennessee argued HHS “usurped Congress’s exclusive authority to regulate Title X funding” by withholding the funding.
The appeals court agreed with the lower court “that Congress unambiguously authorized HHS to regulate Title X eligibility; the conditions of the grant were unambiguous; and Tennessee knowingly and voluntarily accepted the grant’s terms.”
Part of Tennessee’s Spending Clause argument asserted that the 2021 rule change infringed on Tennessee’s sovereignty by coercing the state to undermine its criminal abortion laws.
“Tennessee may not use its state criminal laws to ‘dictate eligibility requirements’ for Title X grants,” the appeals court held. “Tennessee was free to voluntarily relinquish the grants for any reason, especially if it determined that the requirements would violate its state laws.”
The appeals court also rejected Tennessee’s challenge under the APA. Tennessee argued the 2021 rule change exceeded HHS’s statutory authority.
The appeals court previously rejected similar claims HHS had exceeded its authority with the 2021 rule change and declined to disturb that holding.
One judge on the three-judge panel disagreed and argued Tennessee would likely succeed on its APA claim because Title IX bars appropriating funds “to be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning.”
This grant of authority to HHS directly conflicted, the judge argued, with HHS’s conditioning Title X funding on “provid[ing] referrals to abortion providers” at a patient’s request.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY