AG Paxton: Trump Administration’s Title X Rule is a Victory for Conscience, Human Life, and the Rule of Law

AUSTIN, Texas -- Today, Attorney General Ken Paxton applauded the issuance of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ final rule revising the regulations governing the Title X family planning program. Title X is a federal program dedicated to providing family planning services to low-income individuals.

Among other things, the finalized rule will prevent federal taxpayer dollars from subsidizing abortion by prohibiting Title X clinics from referring individuals to abortion. It also requires a real physical and financial separation between family planning clinics receiving money under the program and abortion clinics. And it eliminates the previous requirement that recipients of Title X funds provide abortion counseling, protecting the conscience rights of providers who believe in the sanctity of human life.

“The Trump Administration’s final rule simply codifies the obvious: the deadly work of the abortion industry, which destroys innocent and defenseless human life inside the womb, is the very opposite of family planning. Certainly, it should not receive the benefit of federal funding, nor should healthcare providers be forced to encourage women to consider abortion as a family planning method,” Attorney General Ken Paxton said. “Through this rule, the Trump Administration is preserving individual freedoms and upholding human life – including unborn life.”

In a March 2018 letter, Attorney General Paxton encouraged HHS to address these issues, and HHS cited his letter when it proposed the new rule.