The Texas Tribune reports:
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Texas law requiring parental consent to obtain contraception for minors.
The decision from a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in New Orleans largely affirms a 2022 ruling from U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Amarillo, that ended one of the only avenues for Texas teens to confidentially obtain birth control, through federally funded family planning clinics. Since 1970, the federal Title X program has provided free contraception to anyone regardless of age, income or immigration status.
The 5th Circuit panel, which heard the case last year, found parental consent required for minors’ medical treatment under the Texas Family Code does not conflict with federal law that allows U.S. teens to obtain contraception confidentially at federally-funded family planning clinics.
Read the full article.
The lawsuit was filed by former Texas Solicitor General Jonathan Mitchell, who is also behind a proposed bounty to turn in women who get abortions and efforts to end insurance coverage for PrEP medications.
His lawsuit was filed on behalf of a Texas father who claims that allowing his daughters to get birth control without his consent violates his rights as a Christian. None of his daughters are known have gotten birth control without his consent, but it could happen, he argues.
Mitchell appeared here in 2021 when he filed an anti-abortion Supreme Court brief that also argued for overturning Obergefell and re-criminalizing gay sex.
Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, you will recall, is the Trump-appointed former anti-LGBTQ hate group lawyer whose ruling against abortion pills in now before the Supreme Court.
Kacsmaryk, who recently upheld a ban on a drag show at a Texas public university, was previously exposed for failing to disclose nasty anti-LGBTQ interviews and acting to hide his authorship of an anti-abortion article ahead of his Senate confirmation hearing.
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Texas law requiring parental consent to obtain contraception for minors.https://t.co/xzmX8Gqf6t
— ABC 7 Amarillo (@ABC7Amarillo) March 14, 2024