Minnesota joins multi-state Title X suit against Trump administration to protect birth control funding

Minnesota joined 23 states in suing the Trump administration Thursday, trying to stop new rules that could cut off federal funding for birth control clinics and other family planning services. 

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Maryland, centers around Title X, which Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison's office says helps low-income Americans get birth control, cancer screenings, STI testing, and other basic health care. 

In July, the Department of Health and Human Services said clinics now have to follow a long list of political rules to keep getting Title X money. Those rules include dropping diversity and inclusion programs, excluding transgender people, pushing "natural family planning" instead of birth control, and encouraging patients toward marriage and parenthood instead of giving them neutral advice. Clinics that don't go along could lose their funding. 

Ellison said health care decisions belong to patients and their doctors — not the government. 

"There's no room in that equation for Donald Trump," he said. 

The states say these new rules break the law that created Title X, which requires clinics to offer a full range of birth control options and treat every patient fairly, including LGBTQ+ patients. They also say the administration skipped required public feedback steps before making the change, and that the rules are too vague for clinics to even know how to follow them. 

In Minnesota, Title X sends about $3.5 million a year to Planned Parenthood North Central States and Ramsey County. Combined with state money, Minnesota spends more than $17 million a year on these services, and could lose about a fifth of that funding if the lawsuit fails, according to Ellison. 

The suit was led by New York and Massachusetts, joined by Minnesota, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaiʻi, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin, plus the governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania.