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 The preliminary injunction bars enforcement nationwide of a policy
that was due to go into effect on May 3 over the vehement objections
of abortion supporters who have decried it as a "gag rule" designed
to silence doctor-patient communications about abortion options.
"Today’s ruling ensures that clinics across the nation can remain
open and continue to provide quality, unbiased healthcare to women,"
Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in a statement
announcing the decision.
Washington state was a named plaintiff in the case challenging
restrictions proposed by the U.S. Health and Human Services
Department (HHS) to its Title X program subsidizing reproductive
healthcare and family planning costs for low-income women.
Neither the White House nor HHS immediately responded to requests
from Reuters for comment.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Stanley Bastian in Yakima, in
eastern Washington, capped a hearing in which oral arguments were
presented by both sides.
"There is no public interest in perpetuating unlawful agency
action," Bastian wrote in his ruling.
Bastian also wrote that the "Plaintiffs have presented reasonable
arguments that indicate they are likely to succeed on the merits."
He said that the plaintiffs "are likely to suffer irreparable harm
in the absence of a preliminary injunction."
A federal judge in Oregon earlier this week said he intended to
grant a preliminary injunction in a similar but separate lawsuit
brought by 20 states and the District of Columbia. Two more lawsuits
challenging the Title X restrictions are pending in California and
Maine.
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The restrictions are aimed at fulfilling Republican President Donald
Trump's campaign pledge to end federal support for Planned
Parenthood, an organization that provides abortions and other health
services for women under Title X.
Congress appropriated $286 million in Title X grants in 2017 to
Planned Parenthood and other health centers to provide birth
control, screening for diseases and other reproductive health and
counseling to low-income women.
The funding is already prohibited from being used for abortions, but
abortion opponents have long complained that the money in effect
subsidizes Planned Parenthood as a whole.
Planned Parenthood provides healthcare services to about 40 percent
of the 4 million people who rely on Title X funding annually, and
the organization has argued that community health centers would be
unable to absorb its patients.
Under the new rule, clinics that receive Title X funding would be
barred from referring patients for abortion as a method of family
planning. The regulation also would require financial and physical
separation between facilities funded by Title X and those providing
abortions.
Abortion opponents have argued the plan would not ban abortion
counseling but would ensure that taxpayer funding does not support
clinics that also perform the procedure.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles and Nate Raymond in
Boston; Additional reporting by Eric Beech in Washington and Rich
McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Tom Brown and Cynthia Osterman)
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