ATTORNEY GENERAL RAOUL FILES LAWSUIT TO PROTECT TITLE X FAMILY PLANNING FUNDING

ATTORNEY GENERAL RAOUL FILES LAWSUIT TO PROTECT TITLE X FAMILY PLANNING FUNDING

August 27, 2026

Chicago - Attorney General Kwame Raoul, as part of a coalition of 23 states, filed a lawsuit to block a new federal policy that threatens to strip federal family planning funding from states and providers unless they meet a variety of new and ambiguous conditions. The lawsuit, filed today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, defends Title X funds, which support family planning, pregnancy testing and counseling, basic infertility services, cancer screenings, and other critical preventive care for millions of Americans nationwide. The states are asking the court to block the Trump administration from imposing these new conditions and protect Americans' access to affordable, high-quality healthcare.

"Supporting programs that provide options and education about family planning is critical to helping people, especially women, make informed decisions about their own bodies and improve their social and economic futures. The Trump administration has chosen to politicize the Title X program, jeopardizing funding for a broad range of reproductive and sexual healthcare services and risking serious public health consequences," Raoul said. "For over five decades, Title X has supported programs that offer affordable and patient-centered healthcare to millions of Americans, and I will continue to fight to ensure patients have access to the healthcare they need."

Title X is the only federal grant program dedicated specifically to family planning and related preventive health services. For more than 50 years, Title X has helped millions of low-income patients access contraception, cancer screenings, sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment, pregnancy testing and counseling, and other preventive healthcare.

The Illinois Department of Public Health Illinois Family Planning Program has been a Title X grantee since the 1980s. The program delivers services to approximately 15,000 clients a year at clinics across the state. A majority of individuals served by Title X programs in Illinois have incomes that fall below 100% of the Federal Poverty Level.

In July, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published a new funding notice for the next five-year grant cycle that, for the first time, requires applicants to align their grant applications with a sweeping set of political priorities to receive federal funds. The priorities include eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion practices; excluding and stigmatizing transgender people; discouraging the use of contraception in favor of natural family planning; requiring clinics to counsel all patients toward marriage and parenthood rather than providing neutral, patient-centered guidance; and complying with unrelated political priorities. Providers who don't comply risk losing their funding altogether.

Raoul and the coalition argue that HHS unlawfully imposed the new conditions without the notice-and-comment process required under the Administrative Procedure Act. The states also argue that the new grant funding conditions appear to conflict with Title X's governing statute and regulations, which require providers to offer a broad range of contraceptive methods, provide nondirective counseling and serve all patients, including LGBTQ+ individuals, in an inclusive and nondiscriminatory manner. Additionally, the coalition argues that the conditions violate the Constitution's Spending Clause, which limits the government's ability to attach unclear or unrelated conditions to federal funding, because they are so vague that providers cannot reasonably determine what compliance requires.

The coalition is asking the court to declare the administration's new conditions unlawful, block HHS from enforcing them, and preserve access to Title X funding for state health agencies and other qualified providers under the program's existing, longstanding rules.

Joining Attorney General Raoul in filing this lawsuit are the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin, as well as the governors of Pennsylvania and Kentucky.