Girls in Texas could get birth control at federal clinics -- until a dad sued

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https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/09/1161981923/girls-in-texas-could-get-birth-control-at-federal-clinics-until-a-dad-sued

Girls in Texas could get birth control at federal clinics — until a dad sued

March 9, 2023 5:00 AM ET
SARAH VARNEY

FROM Kaiser Health News

The Texas State Capitol in Austin. Teens in the state can no longer get free birth control through federal Title X clinics without getting parental permission first.
Eric Gay/AP

AMARILLO, Texas — On the vast Texas Panhandle, raked by wind and relentless sun, women might drive for hours to reach Haven Health, a clinic in Amarillo.

One of more than 3,200 federal family-planning clinics nationwide, Haven serves both English and Spanish speakers, providing contraception, testing for pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, and cervical cancer screening, all at low cost or without charge to patients who are anxious, impoverished, or both.

Those patients include teenage girls — under 18 — seeking birth control pills or long-acting contraception.

But under a startling court decision issued in December, a federal judge ruled that such clinics violate Texas state law and federal constitutional rights, effectively cutting off a vital source of health care for young women across Texas.

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