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A anti-abortion supporters and pro-abortion rights supporters crowd into the rotunda of the Texas capitol, Monday, July 1, 2013, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Anti-abortion supporters and pro-abortion rights supporters crowd into the rotunda of the Texas Capitol, Monday, July 1, 2013, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Mostly upholding a controversial law with far-reaching impact, judges on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of a father who sued the federal government claiming that long-standing federal protections for teens’ confidential access to contraceptives at federally-funded clinics are in contradiction with his rights as a parent in Texas.

The unanimous decision handed down from a three-judge appellate panel based in Louisiana largely affirms a recent ruling from U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Donald Trump appointee with a history of opposing abortion access, as Law&Crime has previously reported.

The ruling is rooted in a 2020 lawsuit filed by Alexander Deanda. The Amarillo, Texas, resident alleged that federal protections afforded nationwide under Title X programs, specifically federally-funded health clinics providing access to an array of reproductive health care services, conflicted with existing Texas state law dictating that teens must get their parents’ permission first to access contraceptives.

Further, Deanda, through attorney and onetime Texas solicitor general Jonathan Mitchell, argued his rights were being violated as a father trying to raise three teen adolescent girls with Christian values, namely, to abstain from premarital sex.

As a part of his case however, Deanda never demonstrated that his daughters had obtained birth control without his permission.

For years, the federal Title X program has stipulated that “to the extent it is practical,” family participation is encouraged among teens who seek access to contraceptives but it is not mandatory.

Deanda, however, found favor in the court and in 2021, Kacsmaryk’s ruling put an end to confidential access to contraceptives while also vacating an existing regulation enforced that same year barring Title X groups from alerting parents. The appeals panel ruled Tuesday that vacating that particular regulation was premature.

Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Priscilla Richman and U.S. Circuit Judge Catharina Haynes, appointees of President George W. Bush, and U.S. Circuit Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, appointed by Trump, wrote in Tuesday’s 29-page ruling:

We hold that Title X does not preempt Texas’s law. A grantee can comply with both.

Moreover, Title X’s goal (encouraging family participation in teens’ receiving family planning services) is not undermined by Texas’s goal (empowering parents to consent to their teen’s receiving contraceptives).

To the contrary, the two laws reinforce each other. We therefore affirm the district court’s judgment declaring that Title X does not preempt Texas’s parental consent law.

In doing so, we agree with the district court that the plaintiff, Alexander Deanda, has standing. If Title X preempts Texas’s law, as the government maintains, it would nullify Deanda’s right to consent to his children’s medical care.

That invasion of Deanda’s state-created right alone creates Article III injury.

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