Wisconsin Department of Justice Challenges Illegal Trump Administration Conditions on Funding for Reproductive Health Care, Cancer Screenings
MADISON, Wis. — The Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) today joined a coalition of 22 other states in suing to block a new federal policy that threatens to strip federal family planning funding from states and providers unless they meet a variety of unlawful conditions. The lawsuit challenges new conditions on Title X funds, which support reproductive health care, family planning, cancer screenings, and other critical preventive care for millions of Americans nationwide. The new conditions will penalize states and providers that refuse to abandon nondiscrimination initiatives or conform their Title X programs to the administration’s ideological vision of family planning. The coalition is asking the court to block the unlawful and discriminatory conditions and protect Americans’ access to affordable, high-quality health care.
“The Trump administration is again abusing its authority by conditioning federal funding on falling in line with parts of its ideological agenda,” said AG Kaul. “Title X funding should not be influenced by this kind of partisan interference.”
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 health care.
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 programs with a sweeping set of political priorities as a condition of receiving or keeping 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.
In 2025, Wisconsin’s Title X funding served more than 7,300 clients.
The coalition argues that the new HHS conditions 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. The coalition also argues that HHS unlawfully imposed the new conditions without the notice-and-comment process required under the Administrative Procedure Act. Additionally, the coalition argues that the conditions are so vague that providers cannot reasonably determine what compliance requires, in violation of the Constitution’s Spending Clause, which limits the government’s ability to attach unclear or unrelated strings to federal funding.
The coalition is asking the court to declare the administration’s new political 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 Wisconsin DOJ in filing this lawsuit the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, 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.
NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.
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