Federal judge in Oregon to block Trump’s new abortion policy

A federal judge in the U.S. state of Oregon will block a move by the Trump administration to cut off federal money to family planning clinics that offer abortion or refer women to abortion providers, activists, and media reports said late on Tuesday.

Oregon, 19 other states and the District of Columbia, along with the American Medical Association and Planned Parenthood sued the administration last month overrules the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services planned to put into effect May 3.

“At the heart of these rules is an arrogant assumption that the government is better suited to direct women’s health care than their providers,” U.S. District Court Judge Michael McShane said in his ruling from the bench.

In their lawsuit, Oregon and other plaintiffs asked McShane for a nationwide injunction. McShane said he planned to issue a written ruling in the coming days and stopped short of saying what the scope of that would be.

“A judge from Eugene, Oregon, shaping national health care policy is not what I signed up for,” he said.

Under the new policy, health care providers that receive federal funding would be barred from referring patients for an abortion. Programs that receive the money would also have to be in a separate physical space from facilities where abortion is performed.

The rule change announced early this year concerns Title X, a family planning program created in 1970 which serves roughly 4 million low-income Americans every year. Clinics that receive money under Title X provides a wide array of services, including birth control and screening for diabetes, sexually transmitted diseases, and cancer.

Providers, like Planned Parenthood argued the new rules would force them to stop providing services in states like Oregon.

In his ruling Tuesday, McShane said what HHS was proposing would set up inequities in the health care system.

“The final rule would create a class of women who don’t get care that’s consistent with medical standards,” he said. “The court does not disagree that the final rule is a ham-fisted approach to public health policy, one that emphasizes a political issue over Title X’s stated goal of reducing unintended pregnancies.”

Several other lawsuits have also challenged the new policy. California and Washington have sued separately; arguments in the latter case are scheduled for Thursday in U.S. District Court in Yakima.