Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, has sued the Biden administration over a longstanding federal program that provides teenagers access to contraception without parental consent, the state’s latest attack against the federal government’s reproductive healthcare policies.
“This suit is likely a preview of where the Texas GOP – and national Republicans – stand on attacking contraception access,” says Mary Ziegler, a professor at University of California, Davis, School of Law and reproductive health expert. “While Republicans say they don’t want to take aim at contraception, this is another sign that this is actually where we’re headed.”
Title X, created in 1970, offers comprehensive family planning and preventive health care services for low-income and uninsured residents. Texas is among a handful of states that require parental consent before a teenager can get birth control – but Title X-funded contraception was the exception. Under the program, minors can receive contraception confidentially.
Texas has the highest repeat teen birth rate and one of strictest abortion bans in the US.
In 2022, US district judge Matthew Kacsmaryk dealt a blow to Title X when he ruled that the program denied Texas father Alexander Deanda’s “fundamental right to control and direct the upbringing of his minor children”. Texas now stands as the only state that requires Title X-funded clinics to mandate parental consent before granting teens birth control.
An appeals court largely upheld Kacsmaryk’s decision in March, finding that Title X does not supersede Texas parental rights law, but left in place a Title X rule that explicitly forbids clinics from requiring parental consent before providing services.
The new lawsuit is in part an attempt to clarify that mixed ruling. Paxton argues that a 2021 Biden administration rule emphasizing that the federal program “may not require consent of parents or guardians for the provision of services to minors” is unlawful.
“By attempting to force Texas healthcare providers to offer contraceptives to children without parental consent, the Biden administration continues to prove they will do anything to implement their extremist agenda – even undermine the constitution and violate the law,” said Paxton.
Carmen Robles Frost, a Texas mother, has joined the suit. She claims the Title X rule will “facilitate sexual promiscuity and premarital sex” and weaken her ability to raise her children “in accordance with the teachings of the Christian faith”.
Jonathan F Mitchell, architect of the state’s bounty-hunter style abortion ban and abortion travel bans, represents Robles Frost in the suit, and also represented Deanda in the initial legal challenge.
The suit, filed in Amarillo, will be heard by Kacsmaryk, who is the sole federal court judge in the Northern district – and the reason conservatives often file in that jurisdiction, a strategy known as “judge shopping.” The far-right former religious liberty lawyer, appointed to the bench by former president Donald Trump, previously sided with anti-abortion advocates who sought to roll back access to abortion drug mifepristone, a case that reached the US supreme court, where justices ruled the activists failed to have standing.
In their filing, Texas attorneys cite the US supreme court’s 6-3 decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v Raimondo, which overturned the “Chevron doctrine” – a legal framework that previously directed courts to defer to the expertise of federal agencies. Legal experts have warned that all manner of federal regulations are now at risk.
This is far from the first time Texas leaders have taken aim at the Biden administration’s reproductive health protections. In 2022, Paxton sued the federal government over rules seeking to protect hospitals and doctors providing emergency abortion care. The state ultimately secured an injunction from a Trump-appointee district judge in Lubbock, in a ruling upheld by the Fifth Circuit. And last year, Paxton filed suit challenging federal guidance that directed pharmacies to fill prescriptions for abortion medication.
The lawsuit comes amid a broader national push from the right-wing to strengthen so-called “parental rights,” in areas including education and gender-affirming care for LGBTQ+ students. Critics and educators say conservatives are using the term “parents’ rights” as a guise to advance a far-right agenda.
“The GOP has focused on the parental rights strategy to gain influence and control in schools and other areas of life,” says Ziegler. “Here, parental rights are used to strike up fear and create a stigma that contraception is dangerous for minors.”
