NFPRHA v. Kennedy Complaint

Harrisburg, Penn.— The National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA) and its member, the Family Health Council of Central Pennsylvania (FHCCP), today sued the Trump administration to protect the integrity of the Title X family planning program. Title X is the country’s only dedicated federal program for family planning services. For more than 55 years, the program has provided access to effective contraceptive methods, cancer screenings, testing and treatment for STIs, and other preventive services, with priority given to patients with low incomes. In April, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a Title X Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for fiscal year (FY) 2027 designed to corrupt a merit-based grant competition based on politics, prioritizing ideology over quality and qualifications. The Title X NOFO is written to enable the federal government to push highly qualified Title X providers out of the program and bring in new grantees based solely on their alignment with the Trump administration’s political priorities, some of which have nothing to do with the Title X program, the services Congress intended for it to provide, or the patients it is intended to serve. “NFPRHA is suing the federal government to stop its latest hostile action to destabilize Title X, the nation’s family planning program,” said Clare Coleman, NFPRHA’s President & CEO. “HHS’s new Title X grant application guidelines violate the current statutory and regulatory requirements of the program. For more than 55 years, the highly effective Title X program has provided expert health care in health centers across the U.S. The current Title X rule prioritizes health equity, anti-discrimination, and client-centered care, which clashes with HHS’s new funding opportunity guidelines that demand applicants demonstrate agreement with the administration’s anti-DEI and anti-“gender ideology” stances. HHS’s guidelines could unfairly exclude highly qualified and trusted family planning providers deeply rooted in the communities they serve from funding consideration. We are asking the federal government to explain the conflict between the law and its application guidance in court.” The lawsuit, filed on behalf of NFPRHA and FHCCP by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the ACLU of Pennsylvania (ACLU-PA), challenges aspects of the FY 2027 NOFO that contradict the Title X statute, regulations, and guidance. For example, the Title X statute requires HHS to consider specific factors when evaluating an applicant for family planning grants, including the number of patients to be served, the extent to which family planning services are needed locally, and the capacity of applicants to make rapid and effective use of the grant funds. But under the FY 2027 NOFO, applicants can be rejected at a threshold stage if they do not sufficiently align with the Trump administration’s political priorities. As a result, their applications would never be considered under the factors Congress intended or be judged on the merits. Furthermore, under the Title X regulations, Title X grantees must serve patients in an inclusive, culturally appropriate, and nondiscriminatory manner. The Title X regulations also require that grantees ensure that transgender people are “fully included and can actively participate in and benefit from family planning.” These requirements are in direct conflict with the NOFO’s mandate to align with the Trump administration’s agenda that opposes diversity, equity, and inclusion, particularly for transgender people. “The Title X family planning funding announcement is an attempt to rig the system against well-qualified providers, and to instead favor new prospective Title X grantees based solely on their political alignment with the Trump administration’s agenda,” said Brigitte Amiri, deputy director of the Reproductive Freedom Project of the ACLU. “Once again, the Trump administration is violating the law to the detriment of everyday people, in this case the millions of people, most who have lower incomes, that obtain critical care from Title X family planning providers, such as contraception, STI testing and treatment, and cervical cancer screenings. We will do everything we can to protect the integrity of the Title X program so that people can get the health care they need.” “FHCCP has led the Title X program in Central Pennsylvania for more than 50 years. In that time, our team has built a strong network of providers and community partners that today serve more than 31,000 people each year, providing high-quality family planning services across a 24-county region,” said Patricia Fonzi, President/CEO of FHCCP. “We welcome a competitive grant process and believe every applicant should be evaluated on its ability to effectively serve communities, responsibly steward federal resources, and demonstrate the experience and capacity necessary to carry out the Title X statute. At the end of the day, the success of Title X is measured by whether people can access the care they need in their own communities – and that depends on funding decisions grounded in experience, proven performance, and the ability to deliver comprehensive care where it is needed most.” "The Trump administration's attempt to condition Title X funding on political allegiance is a grave threat to public health," said Sara Rose, deputy legal director at ACLU of Pennsylvania. "Grant decisions must be guided by objective standards to ensure that taxpayer money is spent fairly and efficiently without regard to the ideology of its recipients." The lawsuit also claims that the federal government acted arbitrarily and capriciously, including by relying on factors outside of what Congress intended for review of Title X grants. Further, the challenged aspects of the NOFO are an unjustified reversal of the federal government's prior positions. This lawsuit, National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association et al. v. Kennedy et al., was filed in the Middle District of Pennsylvania. The complaint is available here.