Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing two pro-life medical associations filed a friend-of-the-court brief Monday, encouraging the U.S. Supreme Court to take a case concerning a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services rule that prevents federal family-planning funding under the Title X program from being used for abortions. The brief explains that the HHS final rule essentially revives one that the Supreme Court already found constitutional in a previous case and should therefore be upheld.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit blocked the HHS regulations in Maryland while a 9th Circuit decision in a separate case upheld them. The rulings create a split between the circuits that only the Supreme Court can resolve.
“No court can substitute its own policy views for the views of the elected branches of government,” said ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of Appellate Advocacy John Bursch. “The Supreme Court has already recognized that the federal government has authority to prevent Title X funds from being used for abortion. The 4th Circuit chose instead to rely on the preferences of pro-abortion medical associations. The Supreme Court should take this case and affirm that HHS has the authority to issue a rule that the high court already deemed constitutional.”
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As ADF explains in its brief filed in Azar v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore on behalf of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists and the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, the HHS final rule “essentially revives Title X regulations this Court approved in Rust v. Sullivan.” What’s more, the brief continues, “Congress writes the laws, and the executive implements them.”
“There is no role for the courts to impose their own policy preferences in place of duly enacted laws and proper regulations,” Bursch said.
