Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is to sue the Biden administration to stop a federal program that gives birth control to teens without parental consent.
Title X, introduced in 1970, allows contraception to be given without parental consent.
In 2020, Texan Alexander Deanda sued, claiming that his parental rights were being violated.
Conservative federal judge, Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled in Deanda’s favor and his decision was upheld on appeal.
Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, was the first federal justice to approve a challenge to the right to contraception in the wake of the overturning of Roe. V. Wade.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks at the ‘Save America’ rally on October 22, 2022 in Robstown, Texas. Paxton is seeking to block a federal mandate on teen birth control.
Brandon Bell/Getty Images
Abortion rights and pro-contraception groups say the ruling is proof that conservative judges will use the Supreme Court‘s overturning of the landmark abortion ruling to push forward with further restrictions.
In 2021, the Biden Administration issued a new rule that contraception providers “may not require consent of parents or guardians for the provision of services to minors, nor can any Title X project staff notify a parent or guardian before or after a minor has requested and/or received Title X family planning services.”
Paxton now wants a Texas federal court to issue a permanent injunction against the 2021 rule.
The lawsuit identifies the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Secretary Xavier Becerra and other members of the Biden administration as defendants.
Paxton filed the lawsuit in federal court in Amarillo, where it will almost certainly be heard by Kacsmaryk, who has already ruled in favor of parental consent and has a strong conservative leaning. He recently ruled against a Biden administration ruling that would have allowed transgender rights in schools.
In a statement, Paxton accused the Biden Administration of trying “anything to implement their extremist agenda” and of seeking to “undermine the Constitution and violate the law.”
It comes after liberal disquiet that the conservative majority on the Supreme Court may agree with parental consent.
It was the written opinion of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in June for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that overturned Roe v. Wade‘s guarantee of access to abortion, Thomas wrote that after voting to overturn Roe, the court now has a “duty” to review other all the Supreme Court’s due process precedents.
Thomas named three cases as examples of where SCOTUS could “correct the error”: Obergefell v. Hodges, which established the right to same-sex marriage in 2015, Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down laws that made sodomy illegal in 2003, and Griswold v. Connecticut, which allows married couples a legal right to buy and use contraceptives.
In July, one month after Roe v. Wade was overturned, the House passed the Right to Contraception Act, which would grant Americans a federal right to obtain and use birth control and contraception.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.