In April 2012, nine Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas (referred to collectively as the Texas clinics) were granted a preliminary injunction halting the enforcement of public funding restrictions that the clinics claimed violated their First Amendment rights.[1. Planned Parenthood Ass’n of Hidalgo Cnty. Tex., Inc. v. Suehs, 692 F.3d 343, 346-48 (5th Cir. 2012).] It was years earlier, in 2005, that Texas created the Women’s Health Program (WHP) to promote health and family planning services for low-income women through a combination of state and federal funds.[2. Id. at 346.] The Texas legislature charged the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (THHSC) with dispensing these WHP funds to different recipients across the state as long as the health care providers did not “perform or promote elective abortions or be[come] affiliates of entities that perform or promote elective abortions.”[3. Id. (quoting Act of June 17, 2005, ch. 816, § 1(h), 2005 Tex. Gen. Laws 2816, 2818).] Despite a legal relationship with the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the clinics were never denied WHP funds because the THHSC never formally interpreted these restrictions.[4. Id. at 346-47.] It was only in 2011, when Texas reauthorized the WHP, that the THHSC disseminated regulations that defined key terms like “affiliate” and “promote.”[5. Id. at 347 (citing 1 Tex. Admin. Code § 354.1362(1), (6) (2012)).] Believing they could not comply with the restrictions, the Texas clinics filed suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas to block their implementation.[6. Id.]
https://www.tulanelawreview.org/pub/87-5-miller